backdam

English

WOTD – 26 May 2020

Etymology

A dredge at use in a backdam (sense 2) in Matthews Ridge, Guyana.

From back +‎ dam. Sense 2 (“region of rural, undeveloped land”) is possibly a transferred use in Guyana of the term originally referring to a dam built on the side of coastal agricultural land furthest from the sea to prevent swamp water from flowing into the land, to mean the region in the vicinity of the dam.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbækdæm/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈbækˌdæm/
• Hyphenation: back‧dam

Noun

backdam (plural backdams)

1. A dam that lies to the rear of something.

   Antonym: foredam

   • 1809, Henry Bolingbroke, chapter II, in A Voyage to the Demerary, Containing a Statistical Account of the Settlements there, and of Those on the Essequebo, the Berbice, and Other Contiguous Rivers of Guyana, London: Printed for Richard Phillips, […], by B. M‘Millan, […], →OCLC, page 19:

     Two side dams are likewise thrown up, and extend as far as the cultivation, where they join a back dam; so that an estate is a complete island within itself, and dammed on all sides.

   • 1835, Patrick Shaw (reporter), Alexander Dunlop (reporter), J. M. Bell (reporter), John Murray (reporter), “Reverend Robert Hunter, Pursuer. [...] James Boog, Defender.”, in Cases Decided in the Court of Session, from Nov. 12, 1834, to Sept. 30, 1835, volume XIII, Edinburgh: Printed for Thomas Clark, law bookseller; London: Saunders and Benning, →OCLC, page 205:

     [...] I, by these presents, sell, alienate, and in feu-farm dispone from me, my heirs and successors, to and in favour of James Boog, [...] that small piece of ground at Canonmills, on which eight lime pits are built, lying betwixt the foredam and the backdam, on a narrow point, [...]

   • 1879 February 28, “Miscellanea”, in The Engineer, volume XLVII, London: Office for publication and advertisements, 163, Strand, W.C., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 155, column 3:

     Back[-]dams had been built to allow of the utmost time being spent by the men in the foundations. When the sea receded from the dams the water was pumped out by steam power from a floating engine lying 120ft. from the rock, and the men were then able to work inside the dams until the water again overflowed.

   • 1909, A. E. De Jonge, “Canker of Cacao”, in W. Burck, J. W. Moll, Ed. Verschaffelt, Hugo de Vries, F. A. F. C. Went, transl., Recueil des Travaux Botaniques Néerlandais [Collection of Dutch Botanical Works], volume VI, Nijmegen, Gelderland: Publié par la Société Botanique Néerlandaise [published by the Dutch Botanical Society]; F. E. MacDonald, →OCLC, page 37:

     During the excessively heavy rainy season of 1907 the Saramacca River rose so high that in many places it overflowed its banks and flooded the cacaofields, so that the trees were standing in water. On the estate Johanna Catharina on the right bank of the river, the backdam broke, so that bushwater came in; at „De Morgenster“ it oozed through the backdam.

   • 1958, Edgar Mittelholzer, With a Carib Eye, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC, page 152:

     The cane-fields of the one-time Plantation Vrymen's Erven extended from the canal edge far towards the east, and Savannah Road was a mere "dam". In fact, even to-day many still refer to it as the Backdam. In my boyhood days, it was always called the Backdam.

   • 1968, K[enneth] F[itzgerald] S[tanislaus] King, Land and People in Guyana (Institute Paper; 39), Oxford, Oxfordshire: Commonwealth Forestry Institute, University of Oxford, →OCLC, page 53:

     ‘Back-dam’ and ‘sea-dam’ are the local names given to the shorter sides of the rectangle [i.e., a field]. The ‘back-dam’ is the dam away from the sea-coast, the ‘sea-dam’ is that which is nearest to it.

   • 1997 May 22, “Comment Letter 304 – Marin Audubon Society, Barbara Salzman (October 6, 1996), Received October 11, 1996”, in Santa Rosa Subregional Long-term Wastewater Project: Environmental Impact Report; Environmental Impact Statement: Final, volume XXI, chapter 6, Santa Rosa, Calif.: City of Santa Rosa, →OCLC, section 6.3 (Responses to Comments (Comment Letters 86 through 305)), page 6.3-1390:

     The purpose of these conduits, [...] is to limit consumption of storage volume in the reservoir by runoff from the watershed tributary to the reservoir or to remove runoff which will collect behind backdams proposed for the Tolay reservoirs. [...] [T]hese conduits, which will range in size from 7 feet by 8 feet to 10 feet by 12 feet will carry stormwater runoff from stormwater detention basins located at the backdams around the water surface area of the reservoir, and discharge to the stream channel below the main dam.

2. (Guyana) A region of rural, undeveloped land, especially on the outskirts of a farm.
   • 1934, Agricultural Journal of British Guiana, Georgetown, British Guiana: Department of Agriculture, British Guiana, →OCLC, page 115:

     The cows are kept in stables erected in small yards, and are fed with concentrates and cut grass, obtained from the back[-]dams of estates.

   • 1980, David Attenborough, “Spirits in the Night”, in The Zoo Quest Expeditions: Travels in Guyana, Indonesia, and Paraguay, Guildford, Surrey, London: The Lutterworth Press, →ISBN, Book 1 (Zoo Quest to Guyana), page 79:

     "An hour" to King George was plainly only an indeterminate period of time, for if we asked him how long it would take to walk from the river-bank to a village in the "back[-]dam", he nearly always replied, "Eh, man! 'Bout one hour!" The unit of an hour was never divided or multiplied and "one hour" turned out to be ten minutes on one occasion and two and a half hours on another.

   • 1988, Arnold Itwaru, Shanti, Leeds, Yorkshire: Peepal Tree Press, →ISBN, page 66:

     The factory thrusted and pounded, puffed, and its afternoon siren screamed its deafening blast and warning, marking the hour for labourers miles away in the backdams and sugarcane fields of endeavour.

   • 1996, Diane L. Wolf, “Situating Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork”, in Diane L. Wolf, editor, Feminist Dilemmas In Fieldwork, Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, →ISBN; republished Boulder, Colo.: Routledge, 2018, →ISBN:

     This section, and for the most parts its residents, were considered to be of higher status and moral character than persons from the "backdam," the section farthest from the seaside and nearest to the community's farmland. In more general terms, the backdam was also the section of plantations where the slave quarters had been located, whereas the slave owner's and overseer's residences had been located in the front seaside section.

   • 2012, Hanif Gulmahamad, “Notorious Fowl Thieves of the Village”, in Guyana Memories, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 144:

     A fellow named Tajoo came out of the back dam carrying a shovel on his shoulder.

   • 2013, “Notes”, in Hanna Garth, editor, Food and Identity in the Caribbean, London, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 145:

     The backdam is the region on the outskirts of plantations, which many slaves cultivated during and after slavery. The produce from backdam supplemented daily diet as well as income. Guyanese continue to actively farm backdams even today. In the Spanish Caribbean backdams are referred to as "conucos."

   • 2017 December 30, Joanna Dhanraj, “For Saiku Andrews, it’s all about the music”, in Stabroek News‎^[1], Georgetown, Guyana: Guyana Publications, →OCLC, archived from the original on 30 December 2017:

     In fact, the artiste shared that at different points in his life, he counted papers for Stabroek News, was a cobbler, an office assistant, an accountant at Kuru Kuru Cooperative College and also worked in the backdams among other odd jobs.

Translations

dam that lies to the rear of something

region of rural, undeveloped land, especially on the outskirts of a farm

• Spanish: conuco (es) m (Caribbean)