Savages, big and little, play games like other folk, and some
of their methods of amusing themselves are very curious indeed.
Mr. Elkington has made a collection of the least-known and most
peculiar pastimes, and here describes and illustrates them.
Throughout the world there is a peculiar similarity in the games of
the human race, and undoubtedly they all spring from the same sources,
being the result of imitation, by children, of the duties and pleasures
of the elder generation. In the savage races, however, we find them
in their most primitive and interesting state, and in this article I
propose to describe a few of the least known and most peculiar--some
which I have myself witnessed, and others that I have collected from
well-known travellers.
As with ourselves, it is not only the children who play, and the
pastimes of their grown-up brothers are equally interesting. Naturally
the games of the elders require more skill, and in some cases
considerably more endurance and fortitude. For instance, the whip game,
played by the red-men of British Guiana, is one that calls forth the
most enduring qualities of these sturdy natives, and is an ordeal in
which few Englishmen would care to take part. The origin of it is not
known; some say that it was originally an act in a burial scene, but
more probably it is a festival game.
For all functions in Guiana a copious supply of drink is prepared, the
local name of which is “paiwarie.” This is a native-made fermented
liquor, which has the desired effect, in its preliminary stages, of
putting the drinkers into a good humour. After a certain quantity of
“paiwarie” has been handed round, the players of the whip game, men and
boys, line up in two rows facing one another; each is provided with a
whip ornamented with fibre tassels, those of the two end players having
whistles attached. When all is ready a gentle stamping is commenced,
which gradually grows louder and louder till the earth begins to throb
and the players show signs of getting worked up. Then shouts of “Yau,
au!” are heard, and the now excited players wave their whips and sway
gently backwards and forwards as they stamp their feet. Presently the
two end men with the whistles attached to their whips pass down the
centre of the row, whilst those lined up move slowly in an opposite
direction. Now the stamping increases and the whistlers whistle at each
other in wild excitement. Then they begin waving their whips at one
other, feigning to strike with tremendous force, but finally they come
down on their opponents’ calves with only a mere touch. After this has
gone on for some time the two leaders run back to their original places
at the head of the row, and others go out and do as they have done.
When all the players have gone through this exhibition the real
business begins; so far it has only been play.
The women now come on to the scene bearing calabashes of wine, which is
greedily swallowed, and then two of the players challenge each other to
a real whipping competition.
Silence soon prevails, and the onlookers take up their places ready to
watch this extraordinary ordeal.
As soon as the challenge has been accepted the two men step out in
front of the audience and stand facing each other. As a rule they are
splendidly-built fellows, and as they wear practically no clothing for
this ceremony, their physical development is very noticeable.
Cautiously they judge their distance, letting the lash of the whip
just touch their adversary’s calf. When they have thoroughly satisfied
themselves that they can get a perfect swing, one of them stands
firmly, half turned away from the other, who immediately swings his
whip with tremendous force and brings it down on his opponent’s calf
with a crack like the report of a gun.
[Illustration: THE EXTRAORDINARY “WHIP GAME” OF BRITISH GUIANA--THE
COMPETITORS SLASH AT ONE ANOTHER’S BARE LEGS IN TURN, OFTEN CUTTING
DEEP INTO THE FLESH. [_From a Photograph._]]
The man who has received this blow, though it has in all probability
cut right into his calf, does not flinch, but joins the whipper in a
wild sort of dance, accompanied by loud shouts of “Yau, au!” Again the
same man presents his calf to be cut at, again the lash descends, and
more dancing follows, until it is time for the other man to go through
the same ordeal. When he has had his share the two adjourn to the hut
and indulge freely in “paiwarie,” and other players take their places,
until all the grown-ups have tasted of the delights of the game. The
younger fry then step forth and challenge each other. Women, of course,
do not take any active part in this weird performance beyond handing
round the drinks.
Though this is rather a strenuous game, there are many less painful
ones with which the children amuse themselves. One of these, called
the “Jaguar Game,” is similar to our own “Fox and Geese.” A long
procession of boys line up and grip each other by the shoulders, and
sway backwards and forwards crying out, “There is no jaguar to-day!”
Whilst they are singing this merrily, a youngster bears down upon them
from his hiding-place amongst the onlookers. He comes running along
on his hands and one leg, the other leg being raised in the air to
represent the tail of the jaguar. On his appearance the whole line of
boys is thrown into confusion; they grow wildly excited and swerve and
sway, and dodge round, always keeping in a long, snake-like line, with
the foremost boy facing their adversary, the jaguar. It is the jaguar’s
duty to catch the last one in the row and bear him off to his lair.
Sometimes this game is varied by the jaguar having two young cubs with
her, who also run on “all threes”; they add greatly to the excitement
of the sport by snapping, snarling, and generally behaving as young
cubs should. The game goes on till all the row has been captured.
In the “Monkey Game” laughter reaches its highest point, for this is
one of the wildest they play; and not only the children indulge in it,
but the grown-up men sometimes take it into their heads to play it,
when it assumes a very different aspect. With the children it is pure
fun, with little or no danger attaching to it.
A crowd of youngsters line up and move about like monkeys who are
merely enjoying themselves. Suddenly one of them stops and gives vent
to a shriek of fear; the others take up the cry and immediately break
their line and run wildly all over the place, chattering excitedly.
When the simulated panic is at its height the smaller boys spring on to
the backs of the bigger ones, and are raced about all over the place
till fatigue puts an end to the fun. When their elders play the “Monkey
Game,” however, they often become so worked up that they really behave
like a crowd of monkeys gone stark, staring mad.
Sir Everard F. im Thurn, K.C.M.G., at present Governor of Fiji, to whom
I am indebted for the photographs of these Guiana games, relates a most
trying experience he went through during one of these mad frolics. He
says that the players suddenly burst in amongst the huts, swarmed up
the roofs, tearing great mouthfuls of thatch away in their flight,
and then dashed into the rooms, upsetting everything they came across
and destroying food and furniture. “The old man of the settlement and
his wife, in real anxiety for their goods, tried to protect what they
could, tearing it even from out of the ’monkeys’’ hands or throwing
food to them to distract their attention from more valuable property.
At last, with the help of two bystanders, the old man secured the more
violent of the players, and, despite some too genuine scratchings
and bitings, managed to fasten them by ropes round their loins,
monkey-wise, to the posts of houses. At last five had been so caught
and tied in one house; and then, if there had been uproar before, there
was pandemonium now. The captives screamed and shrieked and yelled;
they rolled as far as their cords would allow, and tore with their
teeth everything that came in their way: food, clothes, hammocks, pans,
and calabashes.... The whole mighty uproar only ceased when all were
literally too tired to do more.”
This quaint instance of a game running away with its players seems
strange to us, but probably if a savage saw some of our football
matches he, too, might think the players had suddenly gone mad.
[Illustration: THE “SHIELD GAME,” IN WHICH THE COMPETITORS ENDEAVOUR TO
PUSH ONE ANOTHER OVER--TRIBAL DISPUTES ARE OCCASIONALLY SETTLED WITHOUT
BLOODSHED BY CHOSEN TEAMS. [_From a Photograph._]]
The “Shield Game” is another pastime of the grown-up natives. In this
each man is provided with a strong shield made of palm-leaf stalks.
Armed with this he faces his opponent. After much preliminary stamping
and feigning they close and a mighty struggle commences, in which each
man endeavours to push his adversary back. It is a kind of tug-of-war
reversed. Besides being a game, it is often used as a means to settle
disputes, in which, of course, the strongest man wins. The accompanying
photograph gives an excellent idea of the pastime. Occasionally when
tribes fall out a whole line of experts are chosen from each side, and
the dispute is settled without bloodshed by the success of either side.
It will be gleaned from this that the quality of “pushfulness” has an
added value in British Guiana.
To go back to the games of children and also to jump a few thousand
miles to the west, we find some interesting and curious pastimes among
the aboriginals of Australia, where the young idea copies the ways of
its fathers and makes games of their serious ceremonies. Amongst other
things they play at marriage, taking some of the romantic details prior
to the ceremony to make their game. In some parts of Australia an
aboriginal has first to catch his wife before he can marry her, and
the youngsters have probably heard from their mothers that this was not
always the easiest thing to do, for there may have been others anxious
to wed her--provided always that she was a good worker, looks being
of small account. So the children have taken all these things into
consideration and made their game from them.
As these aborigines have no proper villages, but live in shelters
thrown together in the most primitive fashion, the children choose a
spot in the bush where Nature has made a sort of covering; they then
congregate and imitate grown-up people, chattering about nothing in
particular, whilst the young man hovers round in the bush. Suddenly
he bears down on the players and attempts to abduct one of the girls.
This arouses the others, who all try to stop him, and one of the young
gallants attacks the would-be abductor and a mock fight ensues, the
winner bearing the maiden off in triumph to the bush.
[Illustration: AN AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL CORROBOREE
_From a Photo. by permission of the Queensland Government._]
Amongst the men there are few real games; they all seem to take life
rather seriously, and as soon as they are grown up they devote their
whole time to obtaining food and taking part in the numerous religious
ceremonies, some of which are most elaborate and trying functions. To
us these may appear very like games, but to the aborigines they are
particularly sacred. Of late years, however, they have turned one or
two of these ceremonies into dances or corroborees, but probably this
has been done to amuse the whites and extract money from them--like the
Maoris, who now dance the “Haka” as if it were a spectacular dance for
the benefit of the Pakeha. With the coming of civilization and peace
some phases of its serious import have gone. The photograph given above
shows Australian aborigines performing the kangaroo dance, which is
a modified exhibition of one of their ancient ceremonies. It is not
an exciting affair, nor beautiful, as these savages are not adepts at
dancing. All they do is to crawl about, stamping and gesticulating,
whilst the man dressed as a kangaroo goes backwards and forwards and up
and down the line with a sort of high-stepping action. This kangaroo
dance at one time had a significant meaning, and was probably danced in
connection with an old-time legend, but, like many similar ceremonies,
it is now carried on simply because the ancestors of the present
generation taught it. This in itself would be quite sufficient to keep
the most absurd custom alive, for ancestors are held in great reverence
amongst savages.
One of the most amusing games I have ever witnessed in savage lands was
in New Zealand, where I saw a crowd of children dancing an imitation
“Haka.” The “Haka,” when danced seriously by grown-ups, is a most
awe-inspiring and thrilling exhibition which stirs every nerve in your
body; but when children dance it, it becomes a grotesque and laughable
affair. The Maoris, men, women, and children, have a well-developed
sense of humour, which is more than most savages have, and the word
“savage” hardly applies to them, for more civilized and Christian
beings would be hard to find. When white men first came in contact with
them they found them anything but civilized except in their ideas of
justice, in which they were able to give us lessons; in hospitality
even now they can put a white man to shame. However, for the purpose of
this article I will call them savages.
The children from their earliest days begin to laugh. I do not remember
ever seeing one cry--and they seem to spend the rest of their days with
a smile hovering somewhere near their faces, ready at the slightest
provocation to come out. As the “Haka” is composed of a series of body
movements, in which facial expression plays a prominent part, the
children have plenty of scope to caricature the whole performance,
which they turn into a merry pantomime, stamping and shouting, rolling
their eyes, and hanging out their tongues in curious imitation of the
real performers. The girls, too, have their dances, and these are
really both pretty and interesting, for they are handsome creatures who
know they are good looking, and enjoy showing themselves off to the
best advantage, as one can see by the pretty and fascinating movements
of the various dances they practise. The only thing that mars them is
their anxiety to make grotesque faces every now and then, but perhaps
this too is done by way of contrast. The men have the same failing, and
though their expressions are more savage they do not add to the charm
of the dances. To perform a dance of welcome in front of a visiting
tribe, and pull horrible faces at them the while, is hardly likely to
make the visitors feel at home, but the Maoris understand it, and so do
not get cross, as you and I might.
[Illustration: MAORI BOYS PERFORMING THE “HAKA.”
_From a Photo. by permission of the New Zealand Government Tourist
Department._]
In the Solomon Islands, British New Guinea, and the New Hebrides the
children are also of a playful disposition and have many games which
resemble ours, such as leap-frog and pick-a-back, whilst the elder
generation have musical instruments resembling the jews’ harp, the
fiddle, and the Pandean pipes.
[Illustration: A YOUNG NICOBARESE ISLANDER PLAYING A FLAGEOLET WITH HIS
NOSE.
_From a Photo. by E. H. Man._]
Certain musical instruments are more or less common all over the world,
but often the method of playing them differs, as the accompanying
photograph will show. It represents a young Nicobarese playing a reed
flageolet with his nose! Lots of people in the most civilized lands
sing through their noses, but playing through them is, I believe,
only practised in savage lands. In these same islands the natives
have a sounding-board which I suppose they would call a musical
instrument, for it takes the place of the well-known tom-tom used in
other countries. Here it is beaten to keep time for dancers. It is a
curiously constructed instrument, resembling a native shield; in fact,
some travellers have mistaken it for one. Scooped out of the trunk of
a tree in the same way that ordinary dug-out canoes are made, it is
about five feet long and two or three feet broad; like a shield, it is
concave in shape. One of the ends is pointed, and when in use this is
stuck in the ground diagonally; a stone is placed under the other end
to raise it. To play it the native plants one foot firmly on the buried
end whilst he strikes the board with his disengaged foot.
“Musical” entertainments are popular in the Nicobar Islands, and the
young men vie with each other in composing ditties which they hope will
become popular and thus make them famous. So far none of these songs
have been pirated in England, but this does not say that in the islands
they are not “all the go.” Such tunes are composed to be sung to the
accompaniment of the sounding-board and dances. These, among the women,
resemble more than anything else the antics of timid ladies bathing at
the seaside. The dancing of the men is not much help to the musician
either, as it consists of a few movements rather like dumb-bell
exercises for chest development, so that it can be understood that the
young Nicobarese has no light task before him when he seeks fame in
composition.
[Illustration: A CURIOUS DANCE POPULAR IN THE NICOBAR ISLANDS.
_From a Photo. by E. H. Man._]
On the West Coast of Africa there is a remarkably interesting dance
in which the movements of the dancer supply the “music.” For the
particulars of this dance and for the photograph of the performers I
have to thank Mr. T. J. Alldridge, some time District Commissioner.
The native dancing girls wear most fantastic garments. Their bodies
are covered with a net made of native cotton, from which hang great
bunches of palm-leaf fibre. Tufts of the same material decorate their
wrists and waists, and some wear curious knicker-bockers. To these
latter garments are attached small pieces of hollow iron, from which
rings are hung, and when the dancer gets in full swing these make a
curious jingling noise. An accompaniment is also played by other women
on another quaint instrument called a _sehgura_, which is made out of a
hollow gourd covered with a net, on which are fixed a number of seeds.
To produce the sound the ends of the net are held in the two hands and
tightened and slackened alternately, while rhythmic shaking is now and
then indulged in to vary the accompaniment.
In this part of the world there are several interesting games of
chance, for natives are inveterate gamblers and will stake all they
possess--huts, wearing apparel, and even their wives. One of their
favourite pastimes is played with a concave board, which is put on the
ground facing the players, who stand or squat a little way off. They
then spin a sort of top into and across it until one of them fails to
send it with sufficient force to carry it to the far end; it is then
the business of the next man to spin his top with sufficient force to
drive his opponent’s out, and so beat him.
Gambling seems to be common in all parts of the world; the Eskimo have
many interesting games where chance and skill are combined. One called
“nuglutang” is very popular and is played by several men at a time.
From the centre of the room (generally from the roof) is slung a plate
of ivory having a hole in its centre. The Eskimos stand away from it,
and each in turn endeavours to throw a stick through the orifice.
In one of their games, called “saketan,” they have a curious way of
“staking.” The game is a sort of roulette; a board is placed on the
ground, and a small cup with rounded bottom and a lip is spun on to it.
The man in front of whom the lip stops is the winner, but, unlike most
winners, he is actually a loser, for he has to go and fetch something
to pay in as a stake, which the next “winner” takes, but he in turn
pays in another forfeit in its place for the man who follows. So the
game goes on until the last man wins, and he appropriates the stakes
out and out, making himself the only real winner, whereas the first
player to whom the cup pointed is the only loser in a game which causes
the wildest excitement whilst the issue is in doubt.
[Illustration: WEST AFRICAN DANCING GIRLS.
_From a Photograph._]
It is a peculiar thing that string games, like some others already
mentioned, are popular all over the world amongst the coloured races,
and what is perhaps far more extraordinary is the fact, recently
discovered, that some of these string figures are made in exactly the
same way, and are of the same design in places as widely apart as
America, the South Sea Islands, and Japan. The last photograph, taken
by Mr. William A. Cunnington, shows a very interesting string figure
from Central Africa called “Sumbo” (a fishing net), which is by no
means a simple one.
For the description of this figure and permission to reproduce the
photograph I have to thank the Secretary of the Anthropological
Institute.
Besides having tricks of this sort in which the hands only are
employed, there are many now known which are made with hands and feet,
and others again are worked round the neck and the hands.
Dr. Haddon has made a particular study of the subject, and has, in
collaboration with Dr. Rivers, published particulars of many of the
string tricks performed in various parts of the world.
[Illustration: STRING GAMES ARE POPULAR ALL OVER THE WORLD--HERE IS AN
INTERESTING FIGURE FROM CENTRAL AFRICA.
_From a Photograph._]
_The Marriage of Lulu._