Wappy and Philip

Its very funny how much we go through our days using sayings and slang that seem so commonplace but in fact are so far from it. Recently I had the pleasure of traveling with a group of classy ladies who were not only fun but also a wealth of knowledge regarding Caribbean culture. On our journey to the thanksgiving of the life of a hero who was also a great person I learnt two things about our very common sayings I now wish to share.
Every day you hear it “Him a build him house from Wappy kill Fillop!”
“a whe she a go inna dat, de frock ol she mussi have it from Wappy kill Fillop.”

So who are this Wappy and Fillop? Well apparently they were real people. Wappy was the first gunman ever in Jamaica. Wappy predates Natty Morgan, Jim Brown and every bad man in Jamaica. He was the original shotta. Now apparently Wappy and Philip lived in Kingston because that’s where all the real gun-hawks live. Why did Wappy kill Philip I didn’t hear but he did kill him, and he killed Philip in a time where the only time people know death is by natural causes and freak accidents. Therefore a murder and a murder with a gun was the biggest news, ever. So big that it became a landmark in the annals of Jamaican time. Persons started using this statement to show time. Hence from Wappy Kill Philip.
Now true to form Jamaicans have a strange way of messing up, or let me rephrase that, putting a new spin on birth names. Somewhere along the line Phillip became Fillop and hence, Wappy kill Fillop.

Now being the badass that he was, Wappy was on the run from the police for some time. And in the age before the C. S.I.s and the Law and Orders it took the police some time to find him. Well that’s to say if they ever found him at all. So another much used slang developed in our collective culture and that is to say “Wappy back”. This speaks to the quickness and shrewdness in which an action was taken.

Now there is something to be said about how colourful our language is and I find myself loving so much of our dialect. We can’t just say it was big or huge, no emphasis has to be placed in order for persons to understand how big the thing was. Should one need to describe with some degree of disgust someone that their age or size should tell them that they cannot act in a manner smaller people do then you might hear something along the line of;
“Dis big auss tearin man nuh wah leff de likkle school gal dem alone!”
“Auss tearing” derives from the English “horse staring” which speaks to height. And the act of actually looking a horse in its face. Seeing as horses are such huge creatures standing over 6ft tall to look one directly in the face is no small feat. Any one able to do so comfortably was obviously some kind of giant hence the reference was used to describe what one can call an “over grown person”. Who knew?
Jack Mandora Mi nuh choose none.

Related Articles 

Who is Jack Mandora?
Jamaican Folklore: How the Godame Fish Got its Name
Pa John Tricks Anansi
Soldering That is What Young Women Want
Devon House Heritage Site