Of Palavers, Panicles, Panjandrums and Piques

ABC Wednesday is a word meme with participants from around the world. Our Host, Mrs. Nesbitt hails from Great Britain. Says Mrs. Nesbitt: "Some have been with us from the very first round, others have joined in along the way! What fun! Each week we are taken across the globe to see the varied and exciting contributions people have taken the time to discover and capture! ABC Wednesday is now entering a 3rd year of fun! I'll raise a glass to you all!". We started with the letter, "A" and each week we post something in regards to the next letter of the alphabet. This week's letter is, "P".

Petroglyphs

At Bandelier National Monument Park in New Mexico. Click on the image to see more detail. We are looking up at a cliff wall and in the indentation, there is a petroglyph of a parrot. Yes, parrots were part of the trade route along the Rio Grande river in the hey day of these cliff dwellers.

Pretzel

I'm sure this isn't the pretzel; you envisioned! But, I thought this was hilarious. Notice that this is a vendor selling chips. I love the ingenious way of marketing! This is at Hilo Bay in Hawaii.

Pitcher Plant

Is there anything you cannot get at the Hilo Farmer's Market? This vendor was selling Pitcher plants (they catch flies and other insects). A novelty more than anything else as these plants are slow in their capture and consumption of their meal. If you have a fly problem, you'd have to get a lot of these plants to be efficient!

Pahu

A Hawaiian drum. They are used in hula performances. Hula is the native dance of the Hawaiians. When a dancer apprentice meets the criteria where they too can teach hula (it is a long and demanding process), part of the ritual to achieving this is to make your own pahu (the link here takes you to a video which is one of many of in a series that demonstrates how a pahu drum is made-note too, that no power tools are used in this process!). This is not something that you would go to the local Hawaiian instrument store and purchase. Making the drum is a rite of passage. When you have been given permission to teach hula, you can then claim the title of Kumu Hula.

Oh, these "P's"! Here are four of them that I found fascinating:

Palaver. A long parley usually between persons of different cultures or levels of sophistication.

Panicle. "A panicle is a compound raceme, a loose, much-branched indeterminate inflorescence with pedicellate flowers (and fruit) attached along the secondary branches (in other words, a branched cluster of flowers in which the branches are racemes)." (from Wikipedia). Think Lilac flowers here...

Panjandrum. An instrument of destruction from World War II. Sadly, we've gotten so much more efficient at destruction since this one was created.

Pique. There's supposed to be an accent over the e, but I don't know how to do that in Blogger! Originally I was thinking of pique from my ballet classes-French for "prick" or "stimulate". In ballet, these are a kind of a turn. But, the link I have for this one is even more interesting as it has to do with textiles (click on the word).

Hey! And let's not forget my name: Paula!