Part 42

Again, those games in which "guessing" occurs remind us of the important part that guessing or chance plays in the beliefs of the savage and uncivilised. A person who, by a guess, discovers a special person out of a number, or the exact number of articles concealed in a hand or under a foot, has something of the supernatural or witch-element about him. This is largely the foundation of the belief in witchcraft and the sorcerer. It is not surprising to find, therefore, the guessing-element largely extant in the dramatic game. The "guesser" is usually chosen by lot by means of the counting-out rhyme; the leader then proceeds to confuse the guesser's or witch's mind by re-naming secretly the rest of the players. He calls the "guesser," and in a doggerel rhyme (the remains or imitation probably of an incantation), tells him to pick out or name a certain person or thing. If the guess is correct, the "guesser" takes that person to his side, indicating power over that individual or thing. If the "guesser" is unsuccessful, he is scouted, mocked, and ill-used.

I now proceed with the second classification referred to on p. 461. Of the games classified on pp. 461-470, _ante_, it will be found on examination that nearly all of them are dramatic in form. This leads me at once to suggest that so important a phase of their character needs separate investigation, and this I proceed to do.

In the first place, it will be found that certain of the games are wholly dramatic whatever may be the customs or rites they imitate. These games are of two classes--first, where dramatic action is complete throughout the whole game, that is where singing, action, and words are represented; secondly, where singing has dropped out, action and words only remaining.

These two classes are as follows:--

DRAMATIC GAMES.

(1) SINGING (_containing words, tune, action_).

All the Boys. Babbity Bowster. Booman. Curly Locks. Cushion Dance. Dillsie, Dollsie Dee. Down in the Valley. Down in yonder Meadow. Galley, Galley, Ship. Glasgow Ships. Green Grass. Green Gravel. Hark the Robbers. Hear all! let me at her. Here comes a Lusty Wooer. Here comes a Virgin. Here I sit on a Cold Green Bank. Here's a Soldier. Here stands a Young Man. Hey Wullie Wine. Isabella. Jenny Jones. Jolly Fishermen. Jolly Hooper. Jolly Miller. Jolly Rover. Jolly Sailors. Keys of Heaven. King William. Kiss in the Ring. Knocked at the Rapper. Lady of the Land. Lady on the Mountain. London Bridge. Mary Brown. Mary mixed a Pudding. Merry-ma-tansa. Milking Pails. Mulberry Bush. Needle Cases. Nettles Grow. Nuts in May. Oats and Beans. Old Dame. Old Roger. Oliver, Oliver, follow the King. Oranges and Lemons. Poor Mary sits a-weepin'. Poor Widow. Pray, pretty Miss. Pretty little Girl. Queen Anne. Queen Mary. Ring me Rary. Rosy Apple. Round and Round the Village. Sally Water. Salmon Fishers. Silly Old Man. Soldier. Soldiers. Three Dukes. Three Knights. Three Old Bachelors. Three Sailors. Wallflowers. We are the Rovers. When I was a Young Girl. Widow. Wind. Would you know how doth the Peasant?

(2) DIALOGUE AND ACTION (_no singing_).

Auld Grannie. Barbarie, King of the. Chickens, come clock. Deil amo' the Dishes. Doagan. Draw a Pail of Water. Dumb Motions. Eller Tree. Fox and Geese. Ghost at the Well. Giddy. Gipsy. Gled-Wylie. Hen and Chickens. Honey Pots. How many Miles to Babylon. Jack, Jack, the Bread's a-burning. Keeling the Pot. King of Barbarie. King of the Castle. Lady on yonder Hill. Lend me your Key. Mother, may I go out? Mother Mop. Mother, Mother, the Pot boils over. Mouse and Cobbler. Namers and Guessers. Old Cranny Crow. Old Dame. Rashes. Shepherds and Sheep. Steal the Pigs. Thread the Needle. Three Jolly Welshmen. Tower of London. Trades. Who goes round my Stone Wall? Willie Wastell. Witch. Wolf.

Nearly all the remaining dramatic games form a third class, namely, those where action remains, and where both words and singing are either non-existent or have been reduced to the merest fragments.

In order to complete the investigation from the point we have now reached, it is necessary to inquire what is the controlling force which has preserved ancient custom in the form of children's games. The mere telling of a game or tale from a parent to a child, or from one child to another, is not alone sufficient. There must be some strong force inherent in these games that has allowed them to be continued from generation to generation, a force potent enough to almost compel their continuance and to prevent their decay. This force must have been as strong or stronger than the customs which first brought the games into existence, and I identify it as the dramatic faculty inherent in mankind.

A necessary part of this proposition is, that the element of the dramatic in children's games is more ancient than, or at all events as ancient as, the customs enshrined in the games themselves, and I will first of all see if this is so.

With the child the capacity to express itself in words is small and limited. The child does not apparently pay as much attention to the language of those adults by whom he is surrounded as he does to their actions, and the more limited his vocabulary, the greater are his attempts at expressing his thoughts by action. Language to him means so little unless accompanied by action. It is too cold for a child. Every one acquainted with children will be aware of their dramatic way of describing to their mother or nurse the way in which they have received a hurt through falling down the stairs or out of doors, or from knocking their heads against articles of furniture. A child even, whose command of language is fairly good, will usually not be content to say, "Oh, mother, I fell down and knocked my head against the table," but will say, "Oh, I fell down like this" (suiting the action to the word by throwing himself down); "I knocked my head like this" (again suiting the action to the word by knocking the head against the table), and does not understand that you can comprehend how he got hurt by merely saying so. He feels it necessary to show you. Elders must respond in action as well as in words to be understood by children. If "you kiss the place to make it well," and if you bind up a cut or sore, something has been done that can be seen and felt, and this the child believes in as a means of healing. A child understands you are sorry he has been hurt, much more readily than if you say or repeat that you are sorry; the words pass almost unheeded, the action is remembered.

Every one, too, must have noticed the observation of detail a child will show in personifying a particular person. When a little child wishes to personate his father, for instance, he will seat himself in the father's chair, cross his legs, pick up a piece of paper and pretend to read, or stroke an imaginary beard or moustache, put on glasses, frown, or give a little cough, and say, "Now I'm father," if the father is in the habit of indulging in either of the above habits, and it will be found that sitting in the chair (if a special chair is used by the father to sit in when at home) is the foundation and most important part of the imitation. Other men of the child's acquaintance read papers, smoke, wear glasses, &c., but father sits in that chair; therefore to be father, sitting in the chair is absolutely necessary, and is sufficient of itself to indicate to others that "father" is being personified, and not another person. To be "mother" a child will pretend to pour out tea, or sew, or do some act of household work, the doing of which is associated with "mother," while a lady visitor or a relative would be indicated by wearing hat or bonnet or silk dress, carrying a parasol, saying, "How do you do?" and carrying on conversation. Again, too, it is noticeable how a child realises a hurt if blood and swelling ensues after a knock. This is something that can be seen and shown.

When wishing to be an animal, a child fixes at once on some characteristic of that animal which is special to it, and separates it from other animals similar in other ways. Children never personate horses and cows, for instance, in the same manner. Horses toss their heads, shake their manes, paw the ground, prance, and are restless when standing still, gallop and trot, wear harness, and their drivers have reins and a whip. When a child is a cow he does none of these things; he walks in a slower, heavier way, lowers the head, and stares about as he moves his head from side to side, lies down on the ground and munches; he has horns, and rubs these against a tree or a fence.

A child of mine, when told that he must not run in the gutter when out of doors, because that was not the place for little boys, replied, "I am not a little boy now, I am a dog, so I may run in the gutter." When he came into the path again he became a boy.

Again the same child, when called by his name and told to come out from under a table, a round one, under which he was lying rubbing his head against the pedestal centre, because under the table was not the place for little boys, said, "But I'm not [ ], I'm a cow, and it's not a table, it's a tree, and I'm rubbing my horns."

Again, when personating a train, the actions used are completely different from those used when personating an animal. The child moves at a steady rate, the feet progressing without raising the legs more than necessary, because engines only have wheels, which keep close to the ground; they don't jump up like feet do, the arms are used as the propeller, and the puffing and screeching, letting off steam, taking in water, are imitated in sound to perfection. This is entirely on the child's own initiative. When children play in groups the same things occur. Instances could be given _ad nauseam_. It cannot, therefore, surprise us that in these games children should be found to use actions which indicate to them certain persons or things, although the words they use may render action unnecessary, as action is to them most important. Children, when acting these games or dramas, appear not to need the element of dress or of particular garments to indicate their adoption of certain characters or characteristics. To display your heels and look down at them while doing so signifies a man who wears spurs, a knight; to prance along as if a horse, shows a man on horseback, a duke a-riding. A child lies or stoops down and shuts her eyes, she is dead; if she is passively carried by two others a little distance, she is going to be buried. The child, by standing still, becomes a tree, a house, or a stone wall. If an animal is required to be shown, down goes the child on hands and knees, bends her head down, and the animal is there. If a gate, fortress, or castle is wanted, two children join hands, and their arms are raised or lowered when required for opening the gate, &c. If one child is to personate a "mother," one or two or more smaller children are placed behind or beside her as her children, because "mothers have children," and so on. Many other examples could be given from these games of the same kind of thing. There is, then, no difficulty as to the reason why children should have continued playing at these games when once they had seen their elders play them or similar performances, nor why children should not have embodied in a game or play some of the manners and customs which were constantly going on around them in olden times as they do now, imitating the habits and customs of the men and women and animals by whom they were surrounded.

We know from the evidence of those who have collected the games that many were played as amusements by young men and women up to a few years ago. Some are still so played, and some years further back it was a general practice for men and women in country districts to play these or similar games at fairs and festivals; it is unlikely that adults would play seriously at children's games, but children having seen their elders playing at these amusements would adopt them and use them in their turn, until these amusements become in turn too frivolous and childish for them. It is not so very many years since that the then educated or cultured classes amused themselves by occupations now deemed silly and unfit even for children of the uneducated class--witness practical joking, cock-fighting, &c.

The natural instinct to dramatic action in children is paralleled by the same instinct in grown-up people when in a state of culture where they are chiefly dependent upon their natural capacities for existence. Thus evidence of the natural dramatic power in savages and in semi-civilised races is abundant. The dances of savages are strongly dramatic. They advance in lines dancing, gesticulating, and singing, while others sit and look on; they dance in circles joining hands, they go down on all fours imitating animal postures and noises, they wear masks, special dresses and ornaments, and these have significance for their audience. Some of these dances are peculiar to and only witnessed by men, others performed by men are witnessed by both sexes. These ceremonial dances are performed principally at the celebration of the initiative rites, but some also represent other customs periodically performed.

Catlin's (_North American Indians_) description of the Buffalo dance among the Mandan Indians shows the dancers wearing masks made of a buffalo's head and horns, and a tail hanging down behind. The dancers went through the actions of hunting, being shot with bow and arrow, skinned and cut up, accompanied by singing and yelling. This dance was performed as a ceremony when food was required and the hunters were at a loss, and would continue until a herd of buffalos came in sight on the prairie.

Mr. W. E. Roth gives dances accompanied by songs and pantomimic action and games practised by the N.W. Central Australian aborigines.[21]

[21] _Ethnological Studies among the N.W. Central Queensland Aborigines._ By Walter E. Roth. 1897. London.

In "Secular and Ceremonial Dances of Torres Straits" (_Zeit. für Ethnogr._, vi. 1893, p. 131), Dr. Haddon describes a "saw-fish dance" performed by natives. He says "the advent of different seasons of the year is celebrated by ceremonies amongst most peoples; the most frequent of these are harvest festivals, or periods of rejoicings at the abundance of food. Very frequent also are ceremonies which relate to the preparing for crops or the inauguration of a season which promises abundant food supply. The saw-fish dance belongs to the latter class." Dr. Haddon visited the men, and saw the making of the masks which he describes at length. These were worn by the dancers, and consisted of an imitation of a human face resting on a crocodile's head, and surmounted by a figure of a saw-fish represented in a traditional method. The dance, which lasted for hours, was accompanied by singing a chant, the words of which served as a description of the meaning of the dance. This dance is performed to ensure a good harvest from the sea.

He also refers to dramatic death dances and war dances, and describes some interesting forms of other dances, one in which crabs are represented. He says, all the men dance in single file, and each man during the dance performs some definite movements which illustrate an action in real life, such as agricultural, nautical, or fishing employments; for example, a man would crouch and move his hands about as if he were planting yams or looking for pearl shell at the bottom of the sea. These movements are known to the spectators, though the foreign observer may not catch the allusion. Probably most of these actions have become more or less conventionalised during innumerable dance representations, just as some of the adjuncts to the dance are degenerate representations of objects used in everyday life. In the war dance the actions illustrate the method pursued in war, ending with an evolution which represented the successful warriors threading the heads of the slain on the rattan slings which always hung on their backs when they went out to fight.

Mrs. Murray-Aynsley in a paper on the secular and religious dances in Asia and Africa (_Folk-lore Journal_, vol. v. pp. 273, 274), describes an aboriginal dance which still takes place annually in certain villages in the Khassia and Jaintia hills. It generally takes place in May. The special reason of the dance is the display of all the unmarried girls from far and near to choose, or be chosen by, suitable parties, and from description it is probable that the girls choose. Many marriages result from this one annual dance. The dances take place in a circular enclosure which is set apart for this annual feast. The musicians sit in the centre, and the girls form a large circle round the musicians, and behind the girls, holding hands in a larger circle, the men dance and go through their part of the performance. The girls perform very quiet movements and dance slowly, while the men jig, leap, hop, and wave their arms, legs, umbrellas, and _daos_ in the wildest confusion, accompanying their movements with the most savage war-whoops, signifying nothing. It is also usual for the men to dance when one of their tribe is buried.

In the Kulu district at Sultanpore is held the feast of Rugonath, the chief god, when the gods belonging to every village in the valley are bound to appear and pay him respect. There is feasting, and the men dance round and round the palanquins containing the inferior gods. When the excitement is at its height the temple attendants seize the palanquins and dance them up and down violently, and make the godlings salaam to each other and to Rugonath, the chief god.

In Spiti, a valley in the Western Himalayas, the people frequently dance for hours for their own amusement. Men and women dance together, all join hands and form a long line or circle. They commence by singing, then dance to the accompaniment of their own voices, and the fun speedily becomes fast and furious (_ibid._ p. 281).

Amongst the Lamas there are also religious and secular dances performed at their feasts or fairs, the religious dances by the Lamas, the secular by men and women together, or by each sex separately. In one dance those who take part form themselves into two long lines. Each dancer holds on to the one in front of him, as in our game of "Fox and Goose." The two strings of dancers wind in and out, then divide and dance opposite each other, advancing and receding with a slow undulating movement, which gradually becomes more energetic. Mock sword fights then take place between two combatants, also sword dances, with two crossed weapons laid on the ground, and precisely like those performed at our Highland gatherings. In the religious dances each man wears a gigantic headpiece, which comes down as far as the shoulders. Some of the masks are ornamented. They perform several different dances, in which separate characters are performed, one a Chinese mandarin and his wife, another, two actors wear masks resembling ferocious-looking dogs, one places himself against the entrance door, the other guards the door of exit. They remind one, says Mrs. Murray-Aynsley, of the divan-palas, or doorkeepers, whose statues are seen placed as guards on each side of the shrine of some old Hindu temple. In Algeria the dancing at weddings is performed by men and women. Before each woman went out to dance she was enveloped in a garment which covered her from head to feet, her hands even not being visible, the sleeves being drawn over and tied at the ends so that the hands and arms were enclosed as in a bag. This was apparently a form of disguise, as one woman was sent back because her husband had discovered her. At a funeral also hired female mourners were dancing on the surface of a newly-made grave and uttering wild shrieks.

An interesting account of the war-dance of the Coorgis is also given (_ibid._ p. 251). "The Coorgis assembled in a clearing in the natural jungle. The forest was only illumined by jungle. The torch-bearers formed a large circle; within the open space, in the centre, were the musicians. One dance was very peculiar, inasmuch as it seemed to be a remnant of a period when every man's hand was against his brother's. The performers may consist of any equal number of persons; they always dance in pairs. Before they begin each man is given a bundle of sticks or bamboos. This he holds in his left hand, and a stouter stick is given him in his right hand. At first all the men dance round and round, with head erect, as if going to war. Presently they narrow the circle and assume a crouching attitude, their eyes glancing here, there, and everywhere. The respective adversaries have been singled out; the intending aggressors make a feint or two, then bend their knees so that they are only about two-thirds of their ordinary stature; at the same time they place their feet together and make a succession of bounds, or rather hops, like a frog, and with the sticks the attacking party aim cuts at the legs of the men whom they selected as their adversaries. The latter now takes up the same attitude; he wards off attack, and returns the blow if he can. Whether intentionally or not, one party is victorious in the end."

"A curious dance is also executed by Hindu women at Sagar, in the Central Provinces of India (_ibid._ p. 253). Men are present, but as spectators only. Some little time before preparations have been made for this feast. Wheat or other grain has been sown in earth placed in pots made of large leaves, held together by thorns of a species of acacia. The richer women walk along, followed by their attendants carrying trays filled with such pots; the poorer people carry their own plants. As soon as each procession arrives at the ghat, or flight of steps leading down to the lake, every family-circle of friends deposit their pots on the ground and dance round them. After a time the dancers descend to the water's edge, taking their pots of earth and corn with them. They then wash away the soil from the plants, and distribute these amongst their friends. The whole of the ceremony is observed by the men, but they take no part in it. It probably fixes the season for sowing some particular crop."

These amongst others are all dances of semi-civilised peoples, and these dances, being all of a ceremonial nature, are probably derived from older customs, and performed in commemoration of these.

There are also surviving some ceremonial dances, such as the singular ceremony observed at Echternach, in Luxemburg, on Whit-Tuesday, in which ten or fifteen thousand pilgrims take part. Professor Attwell thus describes it in _Notes and Queries_ of May 17, 1890:--