‘Where They Get That Shabin Pig From?’

I didn’t quite get its name or even know if it had one. All I can recall hearing one man asking in  Kweyol was: “Where they get that shabin pig from?”

The occasion was the launch of Jounen Kweyol on the Bexon playing field on Sunday.

Organisers erected a stage at the front of the field where entertainers did their thing in song and dance, celebrating our Kweyol heritage. To the back, an array of local delicacies and drinks, under make-shift sheds and tents.

A few politicians were in attendance too: Joachim Henry, the Parliamentary representative for Castries Southeast, where the event was held; Richard Frederick, the Castries-Central MP, and Ernest Hilaire, the Minister of Culture who has responsibility for Jounen Kweyol, among other festivals.

Those in attendance milled around, some in the Kweyol wear, a warm-up for the big day on October 27.

However, all eyes were to the back of the food area late in the afternoon, where the ‘shabin pig’  was the centre of attraction.

You would have thought this was the main act, as people paid little attention to what was happening on stage.

Within the confines of a pen made with wooden pallets, the pig was tied, awaiting its unwilling participation in the game of Greasy Pig.

On the outside of the pen, scores of onlookers had gathered, some willing to place their bets on a winner.

While we waited for the action to start, I learned quite a bit from some pig experts.

One declared that the shabin pig was too docile, which would make catching it easy.

“A wild pig from the hills would have been better,” he declared.

Another said that the longer the organizers waited to start the game, the calmer the pig would be as it neared its bedtime.

However, one thing no one could tell me for sure was where the game of greasy pig originated.

One man who appeared to be in his 60s told me that since he was a boy, he used to go to see Greasy Pig and Greasy Pole with his mother.

He said the events happened during Assou Square in Castries at New Year’s time and at some bazaars and fairs.

After Sunday’s event, I tried to research the origins of the game of greasy pig in Saint Lucia but failed.

For the most part, the game has been widely popular since the 1900s in the United States and the UK.

People would grease up a pig with lard or some other ingredient and participants would pay a fee to see who would catch the animal.

In some places, they call it pig wrestling or pig scramble.

And while at Sunday’s event organisers used two buckets of lard to grease the shabin pig, there was not much scrambling from the pig or the participants.

After curious onlookers had waited for more than two hours and the sun had set – an anti-climax. Two participants grabbed a pair of the pig’s legs each and hoisted it over the pen to earn their prize.

The effort lasted less than the time it took for Julien Alfred’s 100m Olympic win.

The crowd wasn’t pleased.

Some argued that only one person was allowed to catch the pig back in the day. Then again I guess those who had argued wrong pig, wrong time for the event, were right.

Ah, well, at least the crowd could now refocus on the main stage, where performers such as Black Pearl and others were doing their thing as they awaited the headline act, Midnight Groovers of Dominica.

One thing I do know for sure is that there will be a lot more pigs in many other shapes and forms, but mainly cooked, at the center of the upcoming Kweyol Heritage Month in October.