Chong kun,
Ko tu ra,
Biong.
The wide diffusion of the custom of using counting-out rhymes among children, and the general resemblance they bear to each other, present problems of curious interest.
Among the imitative games of children, there are few more interesting than the Toros or mock bull-fight of Spanish boys. A wicker mask from Madrid, representing the bull’s head, which is used in this sport, is suspended beside this case, within which may be seen the toy espadas or swords and the banderillios. Tops are shown to be of great antiquity and of very general use over the earth. Their age is illustrated by a wooden top from the Fayum, Egypt, discovered by Mr. Flinders Petrie at Kahûn, belonging to 2800 B. C. They were common among the American Indians, north and south. A number of balls of baked clay and stone, which were whipped in a game on the ice, represent the primitive tops of the Sioux, while a more recent Sioux top of wood with a peg of brass shows foreign influences. Among the Omahas tops were called Moo de de ska, a name which Mr. Francis La Flesche says is not descriptive. The explorations conducted for the Department by Mr. George A. Dorsey in Peru have contributed several interesting specimens to this collection. Two prehistoric tops from Ancon are identical in form with the ancient Egyptian top, while another from an ancient grave at Arica is distinguished by a spindle, not unlike the modern tops of Japan. The use of pop-guns among the ancient Peruvians is also shown by two beautifully carved specimens of wood contained in a llama skin pouch, from an ancient grave in Cañete valley. Popguns were used by many if not all of the American Indian tribes. Among the Omahas the children made them of willow branches, and then, by partly stopping one end, would convert them into squirt-guns. The toy squirt-gun sold in the Chicago shops is here shown beside the syringe from India used in the Hindu Holi Festival.
Jackstraws, which are known in England as “Spillikins” and in France as Les Jonchets, are next in order. The peculiar Chinese name appended to the Chinese specimens, “Eight Precious Things,” suggests the probability that China was the country from which we derived them.
The remainder of this case is devoted to the implements for a game that holds an unique position among the world’s games, and for which no place could be found in the series that follow. It is variously played with pebbles, shells, and seeds in holes dug in the ground, or upon a board with cup-like depressions. The game appears to be found wherever Arab influence has penetrated. It is very generally played in Africa, in Asia Minor, and in India. Two boards are exhibited, one brought from Jerusalem for the University Museum by Mrs. John Harrison of Philadelphia, and another from the Gaboon River in Africa. The Syrians in the Damascus house in the Turkish village in the Midway Plaisance know it under the name of Mancala, and it is a favorite game with the Chief of the Dahomey village, who frequently plays it with his son before his hut in the Plaisance. Among the so-called Dahomeyans this game is called Madaji, the board adjito, and the seeds which they use, adji. It is a game for two persons. As played in Syria, there are several forms of the game. One is called lâ’b madjnuni, or the “Crazy Game.” Ninety-eight cowrie shells are used, which are distributed unequally in the fourteen holes in the board, which is placed transversely between the two players. The first player takes all the pieces from the hole at the right of his row and drops them, one at a time, in the first hole on the opposite side, and so on, continuing around the board until the last one is let fall. He thereupon takes all the pieces from that hole and distributes them one by one as before, until, arriving at the last piece, he takes all the pieces again in his hands. This is continued until the last piece dropped either falls into an empty hole or completes two or four in the hole in which it falls. In the latter case the player takes the two or four for his own, as well as the contents of the hole opposite, and should there be two or four in the next hole or holes to the one at which he stopped, he also takes them with those opposite. The players continue in turn, and when the game is finished the one gaining the highest number of cowries wins. If a player’s last piece falls in an empty hole, his turn is ended. Skill is of no avail in this form of the game, the result always being a mathematical certainty, accordingly as the cowries are distributed at the beginning.
CASE II.
BALLS, QUOITS, MARBLES.
The antiquity of the ball as an implement of sport is attested by the balls found associated with objects used in other games in old Egypt, where it was known at least 4,700 years ago. Games of ball are common among savage and barbarous people, and ball games of Burma, Siam, India, and Japan, as well as those of the North American Indians, are suggested in this case. With the ball games are the sticks used in a widely diffused game which we commonly know as “Tip-cat.” Tip-cat is played with a block of wood, about six inches in length, which is struck with a small club or bat and knocked into the air. The rules for playing are somewhat complicated, and as far as they have been compared, appear to be much the same all over the earth. The oldest specimen is from Kahûn, Egypt, of 2800 B. C. Tip-cat is known by the Syrians in the Plaisance, who have contributed the sticks they use in the game they call Hab. In Persia it is called Guk tchub, “frog-wood,” a name given to it, like our name “cat,” from the way the small stick leaps into the air. In China the game is called Ta-pang, “to knock the stick,” and the Chinese laborers in the United States call the “cat” To tsz, or “Little Peach.” In Japan the game is called In ten; the small stick ko, “son,” and the long one oya, “parent.” In India the game is called Gutti danda; in Burma, Kyitha, and in Russian Kosley, “goat,” a suggestive name like that of Persia and our own name, “cat.”
The wicker baskets or cestas for the Spanish game of ball or Pelota, now so popular in Spain, are next shown, with the flat bat used by the Spaniards in ball games. A very ancient English bat for trap ball appears with them, and these are followed by the implements used in the current American and English ball games exhibited by Messrs. A. G. Spalding & Bros. of Chicago. Cricket, Baseball, Football, Golf, Polo, La Crosse and Lawn Tennis, Racket and Battledore and Shuttlecock, are displayed in order, and with the last are exhibited the Zuñi Indian and the Japanese form of this game and the Chinese shuttlecock, which is kicked with the toes. The tossing games comprise Jackstones, Cup and Ball, Grace Hoops, and Quoits, and ring games of various kinds, and include the iron quoits Rayuelas, used in Spain. The stone quoit games of the Zuñis, and of the Tarahumara Indians are also exhibited. The North American Indian forms of the Cup and Ball game comprise the Ar-too-is, or “match-making” game of the Penobscots, exhibited by Chief Joseph Nicolar of Oldtown Me., and the Sioux game played with the phalangal bones of the deer. The comparatively new game “Tiddledy winks” follows, leading up to a recent German game called the “Newest War Game,” in which the men or “winks” are played upon a board upon which are represented two opposing fortresses. The games of tossing cowries and coins are next suggested, with the game played by Chinese children with olive seeds. Many natural objects are exhibited that are used by children in playing games resembling marbles, to which artificial objects they appear to lead. In Burma the seeds of a large creeper, the Eutada Pursoetha, are employed in a game called Gohunyin, one of the commonest forms of gambling known in that country. In Asia Minor, knuckle-bones of sheep, which are often weighted with lead, are used in the same manner, and in Damascus and the cities in connection with marbles. Marbles themselves, in the varieties known to commerce, are next exhibited.