This form is now archaic and is only used on farms and by those living in rural areas to refer, mostly, to young black boys and sometimes, by extension, to the volkies [nation.DIM.PL] 'farm labourers' more generally. Piekanien picked up racist connotations during the Apartheid era, although this was never the case across-the-board. A popular children's lullaby is called Slaap Piekanien ('Sleep piekanien'), and the way in which piekanien has been borrowed into South African English does not reflect any necessary bias (it is used neutrally to refer to black children who have not yet undergone an initiation ceremony, after which they number among the men of their community). It is also common to hear people referring to a piekanien helping an ousie ('old one', usually an old woman), where the latter carries connotations of wisdom.