Date:  Tue, 16 Jan 1996 15:55:01 PST

From:  "//www.usa.net/~ague" <ague[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]REDRCK.ENET.DEC.COM>

Subject: Re: Piggin (Bucket)



Using Web Search engine, "piggin" can be either a bucket or a type of cowboy's

rope. Although the latter might be a shortened form of "pigging".



>From "The Island of Doctor Moreau" by HGWells, (etext as entered by The

Project Gutenberg):



...

"I had recovered from my hysterical phase by this time

and answered his hail, as he approached, bravely enough.

I told him the dingey was nearly swamped, and he reached me a piggin.

I was jerked back as the rope tightened between the boats.

For some time I was busy baling."



...

"At a word of command from Montgomery, the four men in the launch

sprang up, and with singularly awkward gestures struck the lugs.

Montgomery steered us round and into a narrow little dock excavated

in the beach. Then the man on the beach hastened towards us.

This dock, as I call it, was really a mere ditch just long

enough at this phase of the tide to take the longboat.

I heard the bows ground in the sand, staved the dingey off the rudder

of the big boat with my piggin, and freeing the painter, landed.

The three muffled men, with the clumsiest movements, scrambled out

upon the sand, and forthwith set to landing the cargo, assisted by

the man on the beach. I was struck especially by the curious

movements of the legs of the three swathed and bandaged boatmen,--

not stiff they were, but distorted in some odd way, almost as if they

were jointed in the wrong place."



>From "Peter D. Green's Nautical Words and Terminology Page",

http://mulberry.com/~greenpd/nauterm.html:



 Piggin: Very small wooden pail having one stave prolonged to form a handle.

Used as a bailer in a boat



>From the THE NATIONAL COWBOY HALL OF FAME AND WESTERN HERITAGE CENTER home

page, http://www.horseworld.com/nchf/rodeo2.html, on Calf-roping:



"The calf is released with a designated headstart, tripping a barrier for

pursuit by horse and rider. As the horse overtakes the calf, the contestant

must rope the calf cleanly around the neck (two throws are allowed) and bring

his horse to an immediate stop, pulling the calf to the ground. While the

horse maintains a taut rope on the calf, the contestant runs to the animal,

throws it and ties any three legs securely with a "piggin' string.""



-- Jim