Pork-knocker

File:Guyana BMNG.png from 2004.]]

Small-scale mining attracted many Afro-Guyanese before and after emancipation as a way to cope with unemployment and to avoid conflict-ridden agricultural work. Mining continues to be a traditional occupation for Afro-Guyanese since the bauxite industry began in the 20th century.{{Cite book|last=Josiah|first=B.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oaxhAQAAQBAJ&q=African+Diaspora+Migrant+Miners+and+Guyana%E2%80%99s+El+Dorado&pg=PT27|title=Migration, Mining, and the African Diaspora: Guyana in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries|date=7 November 2011|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-0-230-33801-2|language=en}}

A 1921 account observed that most pork-knockers of that era were of African descent and worked individually or in small groups.{{cite journal|title=Diamond Production Makes Great Increase|journal=Engineering and Mining Journal|date=February 19, 1921|volume=111|issue=8|page=363|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zs82AQAAMAAJ&q=porkknocker&pg=PA363}} Pork-knockers have often been dependent on bush traders, who carry mining supplies and sometimes grubstake the pork-knockers' operations.{{cite journal|last=Lee|first=R. J.|date=July 1981|title=Diamond Production in Guyana|url=https://gem-a.com/component/edocman/?task=document.viewdoc&id=2909&Itemid|journal=The Journal of Gemmology|publisher=Gemmological Association of Great Britain|volume= XVII| issue = 7|page=477}} Pork-knockers may work in close proximity to each other and disputed claims may lead to violence.{{cite journal|title=Mining Reporter: Life on the Cayenne Gold Fields|journal=Mining American|date=28 January 1904|volume=49|page=86|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3EE1AQAAMAAJ&q=porkknocker&pg=PA86}}

Pork-knocking is extremely hazardous and deaths are not uncommon. Miners were crushed under falling trees, earth, and rock.{{Cite web|last=GTIMES|date=2018-11-22|title=Woman miner crushed to death after pit collapses|url=https://guyanatimesgy.com/woman-miner-crushed-to-death-after-pit-collapses/|access-date=28 December 2020|website=Guyana Times|language=en-US}} Drowning often occurs as mining operations are typically based on rivers to capture gold and diamond-laden sediments. The remoteness and wild terrain are a challenge for receiving emergency medical care.

Pork-knockers engage in a distinct social system, defined by their distance from home; "outside of the moral surveillance of a domicile".{{Cite journal|last=Roopnaraine|first=Terry|title=Symbolising Value: Culture and Economy Among Guyanese Gold and Diamond Miners|date=1996|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23818796|journal=Cambridge Anthropology|volume=19|issue=3|pages=22–42|jstor=23818796|issn=0305-7674}}{{Rp|40}} Success demands conspicuous displays of generosity, giving the miner social prestige and inject money into the isolated economies. Selfishness is associated with distrust, and can damage a miner's access to credit, and also belief that when a miner is stingy, the earth will also deprive them of its bounty.

The presence of pork-knockers in the Guyanese interior has upset traditional Amerindian life there. The Akawaio people have experienced land disputes with pork-knockers and have been adversely affected by a rising cost of living. Amazonian anthropologist Audrey Butt Colson observed that mining has led to a collapse of the subsistence economy. Butt Colson writes that mining village Kamarang, known as "Red Light City", typifies the "pork-knocker syndrome of drink, gambling, sex, conspicuous consumption and, from time to time, violence."{{cite book|title=Communities and Conservation: Histories and Politics of Community-based Natural Resource Management|year=2005|publisher=AltaMira Press|location=Walnut Creek, Calif.|isbn=978-0-7591-0506-5|page=289|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tjBMLQuVsBEC&q=porkknocker&pg=PA289|chapter=Maps, Power, and the Defense of Territory}}

Mining is also under-taken by Amerindians, but there are different social mechanisms in place creating a distinction from those who come from Guyana's urban coast (known as 'coastlanders'). Hinterland mining supplements farming, so proceeds are devoted towards household consumption.

There are Guyanese folk songs influenced by pork-knocker culture, often addressing the danger of the occupation and the hope of finding gold. In 1996, playwright Harold Bascom won the Guyana Prize for Makantali, inspired by the folk song by the same name.{{Cite web|date=31 August 2014|title=The porkknocker contribution to Guyanese culture|url=https://www.stabroeknews.com/2014/08/31/sunday/arts-on-sunday/porkknocker-contribution-guyanese-culture/|first=Al |last=Creighton|access-date=16 December 2020|website=Stabroek News|language=en-US}}

Many Guyanese stories describe pork-knockers who have made fortunes only to lose them in a tragic or comic fashion.{{cite web|title=Searching for Diamonds|url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/2778/|publisher=World Digital Library|access-date=2 August 2013}} Guyana-born author Jan Carew's 1958 novel Black Midas involves a boy leaving his coastal village to become a pork-knocker.{{cite book|last=Lewis|first=Gordon K.|title=The Growth of the Modern West Indies|year=2004|publisher=I. Randle|location=Kingston, Jamaica|isbn=9789766371715|page=292|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=usGdGlstbKEC&q=porkknocker&pg=PA292}} Sheik Sadeek, a novelist and playwright, produced stories about Guyana's colonial era working class,{{Cite web|date=24 August 2008|title=THE ARTS FORUM|url=https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2008/08/24/the-arts-forum-5/|access-date=16 December 2020|website=Kaieteur News|language=en-US}} and often used pork-knockers as the subject of his works, including the play Porkknockers.{{Cite book|last1=Rubin|first1=Don|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VQtFAQAAQBAJ&q=Sheik+Sadeek%E2%80%99&pg=PA187|title=World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre: The Americas|last2=Solorzano|first2=Carlos|date=8 October 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-35921-7|pages=187|language=en}}

In 2010, Guyanese artist Barrington Braithwaite released a comic book Illustrated History of the Porkknocker as a collaboration with the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission.{{Cite web|title=Braithwaite launches 'Illustrated History of the Porkknocker'|url=https://guyanachronicle.com/2010/08/28/braithwaite-launches-illustrated-history-of-the-porkknocker/|date=28 August 2010|access-date=16 December 2020|website=Guyana Chronicle|language=en-US}} Another graphic novel by Braithwaite, Mighty Itanamie, is a supernatural fiction based on pork-knocker legends.{{Cite web|date=27 February 2017|title=Barrington Braithwaite's 'Mighty Itanamie'|url=https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2017/02/27/barrington-braithwaites-mighty-itanamie/|first=Michael |last=Jordan|access-date=16 December 2020|website=Kaieteur News|language=en-US}}

• Mining in Guyana
• Aurora gold mine
• Omai mine

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.loc.gov/item/2021669789 "Porkknocker Ready for his Journey Across the Mountains, on his Back is a Warishi"], Library of Congress.

Category:Gold mining

Category:Culture of Guyana

Category:Miners

Category:Mining culture and traditions

Category:Mining in Guyana