Category Archives: Game

Bat Masterson – Brazilian Wild West Song and Game

Nationality: Brazilian
Age: 20
Residence: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Performance Date: April 26, 2017
Primary Language: Portuguese
Language: English

Informant:

Ricardo is from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and currently lives there “for 75 percent of the year.”

Original Script:

No velho Oeste ele nasceu,
E entre bravos se criou,
Seu nome lenda se tornou,
Bat Masterson, Bat Masterson.

Sempre elegante e cordial,
Sempre o amigo mais leal,
Foi da justiça um defensor,
Bat Masterson, Bat Masterson.

Em toda canção contava,
Sua coragem e destemor,
Em toda canção falava,
Numa bengala e num grande amor.

É o mais famoso dos heróis,
Que o velho oeste conheceu,
Fez do seu nome uma canção,
Bat Masterson, Bat Masterson.

Seu nome lenda se tornou,
Bat Masterson, Bat Masterson.
Seu nome lenda se tornou,
Bat Masterson, Bat Masterson.

Translation:

In the old West he was born,
And among brave ones was created,
His legendary name became,
Bat Masterson, Bat Masterson.

Always elegant and friendly,
Always the most loyal friend,
Justice was a defender,
Bat Masterson, Bat Masterson.

In every song,
His courage and fearlessness,
In every song he spoke,
On a cane and a great love.

It is the most famous of the heroes,
That the old West knew,
Made his name a song,
Bat Masterson, Bat Masterson.

His legendary name became,
Bat Masterson, Bat Masterson.
His legendary name became,
Bat Masterson, Bat Masterson.

Context:

Ricardo: “It’s sang all the time by kids, like, in class or in, like, a break in school because there is hand game that goes with it, but I totally forget how the game goes (laughs). It’s just a fun little thing for young kids to do when they have nothing to do.”

My Thoughts:

I can relate to this song very strongly because when I was younger, I loved playing patty cake with my older sister. Singing games are a great way to pass time when you are a kid, and it is interesting to me that other cultures practice this as well.

“Telephone”

Age: Second Graders
Occupation: Students
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 02/29/17
Primary Language: English

While teaching second graders folklore, we wanted to begin with a fun activity to get them excited.  To teach them about the different ways to communicate folklore–oral, written, or mediated–we decided to play the game “telephone” to show how oral transference can be vulnerable to alterations.  When we asked if anyone knew the game, the whole classroom did.  We were prepared to explain the rules and it was not necessary.

Research the origin of this party game and you find the old title “Chinese Whispers”.  This name is popularly heard in the UK, for unknown reasons.  It follows the same rules: one person whispers a phrase or story to another and then that person passes it along until the last person reveals the story they heard with the humorous accumulation of changes.

The name “Chinese Whispers” formed in the United Kingdom in the mid 20th century.  Apparently it had used to be called “Russian Scandal” and got switched for unidentified reasons.  A theory is that the addition of “Chinese” was meant as an insult to the Chinese race and implied that this particular race did not know what they were talking about most of the time.  But this is not a cemented theory due to the lack of known political conflict between the Chinese and United Kingdom.

It is interesting that all the children in the classroom knew of this game.  It serves a good purpose though in the maturation of children.  It teaches the reality of gossip.  This is a big lesson that needs to be learned and the youthful, entertaining game does just the trick.  Folklore is said to carry some purpose, whether explaining a phenomenon or providing an easy way to teach lessons; and Telephone fits this category.  

When doing the game, the message got one hundred percent changed and modified.  But, when we used this outcome to explain the struggles with oral word instead of written, it reached the kids so much easier. There was no need for trust, they saw it for themselves.  And, that is the point for child folklore.

Passover Seder Meals

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 78
Occupation: Psychiatrist
Residence: Mexico City
Performance Date: 03/16/2017
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: Hebrew

Main Piece: Everything we eat in Pesach has a special meaning behind it. We eat an egg, a lamb bone, bitter vegetable herbs and fruits and nuts, all because it reminds of the deeds of good Moshe. The lamb represents the sacrifice of a goat that was offered at the Holy Temple, for which Moshe was responsible. The fruits and nuts are the mortar that our people used to build storage houses for Pharaoh. The egg, which is hard boiled, was eaten on the first Pesach Seder that took place in the Holy Temple after the sacrifice. We also sacrificed a chicken for the Lord, and ate the egg it laid behind to remind ourselves of our connection to Him. Finally, there’s the matza, the most important of all the meals. Bread with no yeast. The meal of our people for 40 years in the desert. When we eat it, we are reminded of the suffering and dedication of Moshe and the slaves that gave the Holy Land back to us. At the end of the night, we have a little game where the elders hide the matza in some place of the house and the children look for it. Whoever finds it first gets money from the grandparents, and they get to eat it. I don’t know if it has a deeper meaning behind it, but it was my way of keeping the children up for the entire thing. It’s very important to me that they celebrate the Seder with us and understand their history through our food and traditions.

Background information about the piece by the informant: Ethel is the matriarch of a Jewish family in Mexico City and always organizes the Seder dinners in her house. As she said, they are very important to her, as her grandchildren learn about their cultural history through it.

Context about the piece: Pesach, or Passover, celebrates the Biblical event in which Moses freed the Hebrew people from the slavery of Egypt. According to the Torah, they wandered 40 years in the desert before arriving to Canaan, or Israel, to build their Holy Temple.

Thoughts about the piece: Like many other Jewish festivities, it is celebrated and remembered through food. This goes on to show that the Jewish culinary tradition is not simply based on the ingredients available to the culture, but is rather strongly tied to the significance of their traditions. The game of the mazta in the end gives an interactive aspect to the Seder, which involves the younger participants of the ritual and draws in the younger generations to continue the tradition.

 

Hull Gull

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Commercial Real Estate Broker
Residence: Roswell, GA
Performance Date: April 24, 2017
Primary Language: English

My informant is from a family that lived in rural Georgia (the US state, not the Eurasian country) for many generations. She learned of this game from her mother, and later played it with her own children. It’s known colloquially as “Hull Gull”, and it is a guessing game. This is the variation that my informant is familiar with:

Someone holds a few objects in each hand, usually candy. They close their hands into fists and hold them out to another person, the guesser. They say “Hull Gull, hands full” and the guesser has to choose a hand and guess how many objects are in that hand. If they are correct, they receive whatever is in that hand. If they are incorrect, the other player (the one holding the objects) gets to keep whatever was in their hands.

This game is exciting to play because one has the prospect of earning candy or other trinkets, but the possibility of failure keeps it exciting. Further research indicates that it was first publicly shown in 1961 on the Ed Sullivan show, but it could potentially have roots further back. I am also unsure whether or not this is a specifically southern American game, but this is the only context that I have ever heard of it.

Jump-Rope Rhymes

Nationality: Irish
Age: 9
Occupation: N/A
Residence: Dublin, Ireland
Performance Date: February 18th, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Irish

Background Information:

My informant is my 9-year-old cousin from Dublin, Ireland. She recounted the kinds of games her and her friends would play on the schoolyard, which were quite similar to those I would have played as a child. One in particular was popular at the time we spoke, and that was the rhyme “Scales,” as she called it. This was particularly prevalent as it involved the use of two jump-ropes, which separated the older girls at school from the younger girls, who only used one rope and therefore could not play this game. My cousin is particularly fond of jump-rope and confidently calls herself the best “skipper” (skipping being the Irish term for jump-rope) in her class, if not on the whole playground, and therefore told me that she could absolutely be trusted as a very reliable source of the best skipping rhymes.

Main Piece:

My informant is my 9-year-old cousin from Dublin, Ireland. She recounted to me a popular skipping rhyme that her and her friends would often play on the schoolyard. This involved the use of two ropes held parallel to each other off the ground, about a foot apart. The skipper would jump between them and outside them in the same rhythm as the chant that goes as follows: “England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Inside, outside, inside, scales.” The person would jump in the manner as follows: right foot between the ropes, left foot outside them; left foot between the ropes, right foot outside; 180 degree turn and the same thing repeated; then both feet inside the ropes, both feet outside, and both feet inside again. Finally, on the word “scales” the person jumping would land one foot on each of the ropes and force them to the ground. As people missed the ropes at the end, they would be “out” of the game, and the ropes would be brought progressively higher until one person would win. Due to the short nature of the rhyme, this would not normally take too long.

 

Performance Context: This was described to me over the phone, due to the distance between me and my informant. However, I already understood what she was talking about as I had played this game as a child. Therefore this appears to be a particularly long-lasting skipping game, as they tend to die out after a little while, in my experience.

 

My Thoughts:

Immediately, I was struck by the geographically specific nature of the rhyme as being located in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Although I do not know if this rhyme exists anywhere else but Ireland, it would be interesting to find out if this rhyme is evident in Britain, and if it is an oikotype of a larger rhyme in this sense. The song is also more of a chant, with no tune, and a rhythm of 1-2 1-2 1-2 3, which makes it seem like a marching song. This would also be appropriate for a skipping game that involved two ropes, and two movements around them, considering the 1-2 beat. Folk games and folk-music are often passed down amongst children, and many playground games stem from folklore and gradually change over time. This song, considering its’ geographical ties to Britain and Ireland, seems a particularly interesting case, in the sense that it does not include Northern Ireland, which may suggest that it predates the partition of Ireland, or perhaps that it just fit the rhyme scheme better.