Paques - Easter
I don’t know exactly how to spell pocking in Cajun. I’m seeing it spelled pacquing and paquing. I’m also seeing paques paques for pock pock, instead of paque paque.
It’s that time of year again. It’s time to eat yourself sick on a lot of chocolate, dress up nice, hopefully eat some barbecue and paque eggs. We had fun last year but I was badly beaten because my eggs were store bought – weak. I was getting beat up but Mr. Dowell let me have some strong, country eggs -- I was then able to battle armed with some powerful ammo. I should be better prepared this year, with help from Mr. Dowell again.
I grew up thinking that this custom was done only around here. I was surprised that people from around the world practice it also. The Greeks, for example, dye their eggs red and pock for a good year.
I want to dye some eggs red but will probably put all the crazy colors on them again. It’s fun to watch and help kids dye eggs anyway. I’m not Greek either and Evangeline Parish ain’t Greece. So there, forget about dying eggs red. The symbolism is great though – red for the blood of Jesus. I might change my mind. I don’t know. I don’t like those stupid stickers and crap like that all over the eggs. All red colored eggs would look better and I like symbolism. I’ll see. It’s more for the kids nowadays anyway and they seem to love those stupid stickers. Go ahead cher, put stickers all over those eggs and go paque with Maw Maw and Paw Paw.
Here are some interesting links with references to pocking eggs:
Pocking eggs reference article
Louisiana's Living Traditions article
Brandi Chambless pocking post
Red Eggs at Greek Easter
Ukrainian Easter egg breaking
Mostly Cajun pocking post
Mere Catholics pocking post
Through the Lens pocking picture post
Independent Weekly paquing article