The number of plays which employ such chasing is extraordinarily great, and I will confine myself to a few examples which display the characteristic points of difference. One of the simplest forms of it is the “Zeck,” which is described in a seventeenth century collection. Another is the Greek ὀστρακίνδα, for which the boys used bits of pottery or a shell, one side of which was smeared with pitch and called night, while the other side was day. The children were divided into parties of the day and night, and the token thrown up in the air. The side lying uppermost on its fall determined which party should flee and which pursue. Whoever was caught was called a donkey[487] and must sit on the ground to await the end of the game. This may have been the origin of our coin tossing. In most chasing plays there are special pre-arranged conditions which avert danger from the fugitive and facilitate bringing the play to a close, and most of these conditions can be traced to some ancient superstition. In one game the pursued is safe while standing on or touching iron, and in another sudden stooping makes him immune, while others again appoint bases as cities of refuge. These were used by the Greeks, and a great variety of designation indicates how general they are among the Germans. In the Greek σχοινοφιλίνδα the participants formed in a circle, around which one went with a stick which he secretly hid behind one of the players, who has the privilege of chasing the depositor; or, in case he fails to discover in time what an honour has been conferred upon him, he must run around the circle exposed to the blows of all its numbers.[488] It is like our “Drop the Handkerchief,” and also the game where the boy, whose cap the ball falls in, must throw it after the others. Finally, I will mention two games in which this element has developed into complex imitation of genuine combat. “Fox chasing” furnishes a perfect picture of battle. Two hostile parties stand opposed and attempt to conquer one another and to free their imprisoned allies, and yet, since each capture is made by pursuit and not by fighting, the principle of the chase is the controlling one. “Hare and Hounds” is another imitation of the chase. Adults usually play it on horseback, though there is a notice in Ueber Land und Meer (1880, No. 27) of such a chase on foot, in America. Two specially good runners are given fifteen minutes’ start, and the rest of the company take the part of hounds.
But it is not essential that the thing pursued shall be a living creature. Just as kittens and puppies chase lifeless objects, such as rolling balls, sticks, etc., so do human beings also find substitutes for the proper objects of their sportiveness. Catching a swiftly moving ball is sometimes of this nature; there is attending it a feeling of triumphant mastery much the same as that which excites the boy who seizes and holds a fleeing comrade or the clown who obstructs the course of a scorching wheelman. This is especially the case with professional ball players, who allow the ball to pass their hands and then seize it by a quick movement as it is about to touch the ground. There are other games in which the ball is not caught in the air, but is allowed to fall to the ground and roll away while the players must pursue and catch it. Football and cricket are examples of this, and consequently can be classed either with chase or fighting plays, though they have more of the characteristics of the latter. Another form of hunting play which should not be overlooked is the seeking for hidden persons or things. H. Lemming refers to a process belonging to the child’s first quarter as a kind of hiding play. “The child’s aunt had him on her lap, his little head resting on her right shoulder, while she played hide with him. ‘Where is he?’ she would cry while she hid his head between her arm and breast; then, as she suddenly drew the arm away, ‘There he is.’ She had not done it many times before the little fellow understood perfectly. As soon as his aunt made the motion he turned his head in the right direction and laughed softly. Several days passed, and the game had been repeated two or three times, when one morning early, as he was lying on my bed, I smiled at him and he laughed back; then his face took on a roguish expression, and he buried his head in the pillow for an instant and suddenly raised it with the same mischievous look. He repeated this several times.”[489] Becq de Fouquières restores a beautiful antique picture of a Greek hiding play. One little fellow presses his eyes shut while two others hurry to hide themselves. In Siam “Hide-and-Seek” is called “Looking for the Axe,” and is oftenest played in the twilight because dark, impenetrable corners are more abundant then.[490] There is added weirdness, too, in the half light, and the shock of surprise on suddenly coming upon the hidden object is stronger, bringing the players more in touch with the emotional life. The objects to be hidden are of various kinds. This is a use to which children love to put Easter eggs, and much interest is added to the search by the cries of “Cold,” “Freezing,” “Getting warm,” “Hot, hot, burning,” etc. Very common, too, are games like “Button, button, who’s got the button?” where a small object is passed from hand to hand and kept concealed. A curious forfeit game like this was very popular in former years, and is thus described by Amaranthes: “The whole company sit close together in a circle on the ground while a shoe belonging to one of them is slipped along and hidden beneath their legs, while one person tries to find it.”[491] Fleeing and hiding occur in all hunting plays, but are specially prominent in some forms—in games like “Going to Jerusalem,” for instance, where many attempt to make use of the same chair, “Stagecoach,” “Change Kitchen Furniture,” “Cats and Mice,” etc. In many the pursuers are restricted by certain conditions and prohibitions which are in favour of the fleeing ones, and furnish occasion for evasions and all sorts of byplay. For one thing the “catcher” may be hooded or blindfold. Bastian saw a game played in Siam in which the bandage over his eyes was so arranged that it hung down like an elephant’s trunk.[492] Another handicap is to require the pursuer to hop on one foot and hit those whom he overtakes with his knotted handkerchief. When in his excitement he changes to the other foot they all cry out and beat him with theirs. The Greek ἀσκωλιασμός was apparently much like this.
9. Witnessing Fights and Fighting Plays. The Tragic
Æsthetic observation belongs more properly to imitative play, but we have been compelled to notice it already in several connections and must not overlook its influence on fighting play. Thanks to inner imitation we can take part in fights without objective participation, and actually enjoy attacks and defence, strategy and risk, victory and defeat as if they were our veritable experience. As we found in games of rivalry, this internal sympathetic fighting has a great advantage over objective fighting in the more varied and lasting excitement which it effects (for example, the tension of expectation which in one’s own quarrels soon vanishes); yet, on the other hand, it lacks the element of pleasure peculiarly associated with one’s own achievements.
In considering the observation of actual fighting we must distinguish between combat with an enemy and the conquest of difficulty. Inner imitation is prominent in both. When we see a company of labourers trying to lift a heavy stone or beam with pulleys, or driving piles in the water, or a man pulling his boat up on the beach, or a smith beating the hot iron with heavy blows of his hammer, or a hunter scaling mountain crags to reach an eagle’s nest, we take part in the struggle with difficulty and enjoy success as if it were our own. The sympathetic interest is even greater in witnessing a fight between two combatants; indeed, it can be playful only when the onlooker can restrain his emotions and regard the struggle going on before him as a theatrical representation, as is often enough the case. When two boys are tussling, when adults quarrel with high words, when a rider attempts to control his vicious horse, when a man defends himself with a stick against a brutal dog, when the champions of opposing parties fight in the presence of their backers, the spectators may take such impersonal interest in the combat.
Much more to our purpose, however, is the witnessing of playful fights where the contestants engage merely for amusement or to test their prowess, whether or not they are in playful mood. In this case, overcoming difficulties is the leading feature. Then, too, there are myriad forms of juggling, contortionism, prestidigitating, etc., in which the spectator, at least in part, inwardly joins; and the wild excitement of animal and ring fights, bull baiting, fencing matches, racing on foot, wheel, and horse. Even for the fighting plays which are not intended as an exhibition, such as football and cricket games, there is usually collected a crowd of intensely sympathetic spectators, and the players themselves, when not in action, are entirely out of the game, yet they still take part through inner imitation which has frequent outward manifestations. Moreover, whoever sees a difficult piece of work accomplished feels a desire to test his own skill with a like task. The merest onlooker at a prize fight will assume belligerent postures, as Defregger says, and savages are often so wrought upon by witnessing a war dance that serious brawls ensue.
These facts lead us insensibly to the realm of art, of which I merely remark in passing that certain echoes of the fray may be detected in architecture and music, and that the representative arts and especially painting devote a wide field to combat, but that the real domain of internal fighting play is found in poetry. Fighting and love plays[493] contribute most largely to the enjoyable element in poetry, and the latter is less effective when divorced from combat. Even in lyrics, which would seem to afford the least opportunity for exploiting such themes, the tourney is a fruitful inspiration, and the triumphant note of victory is conspicuous. A verse of Heyse’s illustrates in mocking wise, and perhaps more forcibly than any other, how great is the importance to the poetic art of its connection with the fighting instinct. In dilating upon the literary status of the abode of bliss he says:
“Für Drame, Lustspiel und Novelle
Ist leider hier Kein günst’ner Boden;
Die kultivirt man in der Hölle.