tending them, and of pretending to keep house, of preparing food, and other characteristics of girlhood, fall into the same category as the hunting and martial games of boys. There are other games which may be regarded as being more purely diversional in character, as, for example, certain of the games of ball and numerous other simple amusements. Many of these are played equally by adults and children, whether savage or civilised. Mr. Stewart Culin, who has made the study of games a specialty, and who has written a valuable and beautifully illustrated work on the subject, from which I have made many gleanings, emphasises the fact that while games occur as amusements or pastimes among civilised men, among savage and barbarous peoples they are largely sacred and divinatory; and this naturally suggests a sacred and divinatory origin for many modern games. The latter have, however, so nearly lost their original meaning, that even with the light afforded by history it is practically impossible to trace their origin. The only other available method of inquiry is the comparative one, and it will be found that I have largely availed myself of this in the following essays, though I have employed the more strictly historical method wherever possible. 1 "Games, says Culin, must be regarded, not as conscious inventions [here he is speaking in general terms], but as survivals from primitive conditions, under which they originated in magical rites and chiefly as a means of divination. Based upon certain fundamental conceptions of the universe, they are characterised by a certain sameness, if not identity, throughout the world. Without the confirmation of linguistic evidence, they are insufficient to establish the connection of races or the transference of culture." 'Stewart Culin, Korean Games: with Notes on the Corresponding Games of China and Japan, Philadelphia, 1895. Introduction, pp. xvii.-xix., xxxiv. The most important point elucidated by Culin is the proof of the early use of arrows for divining purposes. For convenience the arrows were flattened, and ultimately were replaced by long narrow strips of cardboard, on one side of which was painted a distinctive device, while on the other was a queer design, which is evidently the conventional representation of the scar of the leaf which primitively marked the shaft of the arrow when it was actually a reed (Fig. 35). These elongated cards were shortened and broadened, and from them have been derived our modern playing FIG. 35. Back of a Korean Playing-Card; after Culin. This figure was kindly lent by the proprietors of the Reliquary and Illustrated Archæologist. cards, which even now retain amongst the credulous a divinatory property, and are also still used for gambling as well as for more innocent amusement. Korean playingcards still bear representations of the feathers of the arrows from which they were derived, and their Chinese name varies only in tone from that of the arrow, tsin. In the fourth year of the Hejira, Mohammed prohibited. wine and Meisir; the latter was a gambling game of the heathen Arabs, in which seven arrows were shaken from a quiver. Another remarkable evolution from the employment of arrows in divination is that of the Chinese dominoes, and Europe has borrowed this game from China. Culin calculates that of the ninety-seven Korean games described by him, twenty-three may be referred to the arrow employed as an implement of magic or divination. Lastly, there are games and toys which are the secularised and degenerate survivals of magical practices other than purely divinatory, and even of religious rites, although these two often merge into one another. I have taken a few games and toys, and have endeavoured to work out their history as an illustration of the methods of modern research. The evidence is at present incomplete, but we cannot satisfactorily determine the game of cat's cradle, with which I commence, or that of the top, in the following chapter, to be other than simple diversions. The tug-of-war was probably a magical rite, and kite-flying had apparently a religious significance. Finally, the bull-roarer at the present day represents the three aspects of amusement, magic, and religion. CAT'S CRADLE. One child holds a piece of string joined at the ends on his upheld palms, a single turn being taken over each, and by inserting the middle finger of each hand under the opposite turn, crosses the string from finger to finger in a peculiar form. Another child then takes off the string on his fingers in a rather different way, and it then assumes a second form. A repetition of this manoeuvre produces a third form, and so on. Each of these forms has a particular name, from a fancied resemblance to the object-barn-doors, bowling-green, hour-glass, pound, net, fiddle, fish-pond, diamonds, and others.' The following forms are those known to Mrs. Gomme. They are produced seriatim. 1. The cradle. 2. The soldier's bed. 3. Candles. 4. The cradle inversed, or manger. 6. Diamonds, or cat's eyes. 7. Fish in dish. 8. Cradle, as at first. The different orders or arrangements must be taken from the hands of one player by another without disturbing the arrangement. Nares suggests that the proper name is "Cratch Cradle,' and is derived from the archaic word cratch,' meaning a manger. He gives several authorities for its use. The first-made form is not unlike a manger. Moor (Suffolk Words) gives the names as cat's cradle, barn-doors, bowlinggreen, hour-glass, pound, net, diamonds, fish-pond, fiddle. A supposed resemblance originated them. Britton (Beauties of Wiltshire, Glossary) says the game in London schools is called "Scratch-scratch," or " Scratch-cradle." 3 Amongst other Korean games Mr. Culin has investigated that known as Ssi-teu-ki, or " Woof-taking." It is practically identical with our cat's cradle, as is usually played by girls. The figures, which are the same as in our own children's play, are named as follows: (1) cover for hearse, (2) chess-board, (3) chop-sticks, (4) cow's eyeball, (5) rice-mill pestle. "In Japan cat's cradle is called aya ito tori—' woof pattern string-taking.' The figures are identical with those in Korea, but receive different names. (1) [?]; (2) nekomata, defined as a mountain cat, into which a domestic cat is supposed to trans In the Century Dictionary the term cratch has two meanings, “a grated manger, a rack or open framework." 2 Murray, in The New English Dictionary, does not support this etymology. 3 This account of the English game, with the references, is taken from Mrs. Gomme's The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland,” i., Dictionary of British Folk-Lore, Part i., 1894, p. 61. * Stewart Culin, Korean Games: with Notes on the Corresponding Games of China and Japan, Philadelphia, 1895, p. 30. form itself'; (3) koto, a musical instrument, or geta no ha, the two pieces of wood under the soles of clogs; (4) umano me, horseeye; (5) tsuzumi, a musical instrument. In South China cat's cradle is called kang sok, which means literally well-rope.' It is spoken of as an amusement for girls, but is known to all Cantonese labourers. They make the same figures as those of Korea and Japan, but do not, they tell me, give them names. The order of the figures, after the first, is not necessarily that here given." Miss Fielde' says that the Chinese of Swatow call cat's cradle" sawing wood," in allusion to the final act in the performance. Dr. A. R. Wallace, the famous traveller, who formulated a theory of natural selection synchronously with Darwin, thus describes his finding this game in Borneo : One wet day in a Dyak house, when a number of boys and young men were about me, I thought to amuse them with something new, and showed them how to make 'cat's cradle' with a piece of string. Greatly to my surprise, they knew all about it, and more than I did, for, after I and Charles had gone through all the changes we could make, one of the boys took it off my hand, and made several new figures which quite puzzled me. They then showed me a number of other tricks with pieces of string, which seemed a favourite amusement with them." 44 Lieutenant de Crespigny' writes of the Dusuns of Borneo : Near me were two children playing at cat's cradle exactly as I remembered to have played it in my own childhood." A Corner of Cathay, New York, 1894, p. 87. 2 A. R. Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, i., 1869, p. 183. 3 Proc. R. Geogr. Soc., ii., 1858, p. 344. Quoted from H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, i., 1896, p. 366. |