dominicker/dominecker

[Brad Sondahl]

I was looking at some Uncle Dave Macon lyrics and came on the phrase
"dominecker mule" which made me look up "dominecker" at m-w.com and they
had only "dominicker", from the Island of Dominique, referring to a
barred chicken. (apparently, from googling a bit, it is also used for
stripes including clouds, thus dominecker mule would be a mule with a
striped coat, if that's possible) I'd always thought it had something
to do with chickens, like banty, due to a verse from
the McGee brothers House of David Blues:

Dominecker rooster and a bow legged hen
They go together but there ain't no kin.

I've always vaguely wondered what that verse meant, and am no closer to
it's meaning. I did find a reference from the War between the States to
a speech which equated domineckers with cowards, so perhaps that's what
the verse refers to.

Continued googling brings up lots of colorful southern dialect including
this:
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton/projects/price/harris2.htm

"Wall-eye busted thru the palins, an' Dominicker sed 'im, made a mortal
rush fur his bitts, wer too late fur them, but in good time fur the
strings ove flyin quilts, got tangled amung em, an' the gridiron jackid
patren wer los' tu my sight amung star an' Irish chain quilts; he went
frum that quiltin at the rate ove thuty miles tu the hour. Nuffin lef on
the lot ove the hole consarn, but a nine biler hat, a par ove gloves,
an' the jack ove hearts.

I didn't have the patience to wade through all this, but it's apparently
something hilarious about quilts...
Brad Sondahl
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[Lyle Lofgren]

Brad Sondahl <bson...@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<3E4D4266...@earthlink.net>...

Hi, Brad

You'd think some denizen of the Sweet Sunny South would be able to
answer this question, and someone asked this a couple years ago, but
there was no definitive answer then. I think "striped" is a good
guess, by analogy to the Dominicker Hen. There are, after all, striped
horses (Zebra Duns) so why not striped mules?
I don't have "House of David Blues" handy right now, but my
recollection of the verse is:

The little banty rooster and the dominicker hen,
They hang around together but they ain't no kin.

I always assumed this referred to the size difference between a bantam
rooster and a (presumably) full sized hen. I'm quite sure "banty"
refers to "bantam" and not "bandy legged," although, considering the
response to my idea about the original purpose of Scruggs pegs, I
could be wrong.

Lyle

[Brad Sondahl]

> You are no doubt correct as to the verse. But we can both be comforted because a bad memory may be
> lousy for scholarship but it is the key to a living tradition in old time music...

Brad

> but my
> recollection of the verse is:
>
> The little banty rooster and the dominicker hen,
> They hang around together but they ain't no kin.

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