UNIQUE SURVEY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27057, 16 April 1949, Page 8

UNIQUE SURVEY

CHILDREN AT PLAY GAMES OF TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY INTERESTING RESULTS Mr Brian Sutton-Smith, M.A., of Wellington, has completed a survey of selected Dunedin schools in regard to the spontaneous play of children. Subsequently, he will corelate this work with material gleaned from other parts of the Dominion

In an interview with the Daily Times on Thursday, Mr Sutton-Smith said that the purposes behind the investigation was chiefly to build up an historical record of the play of New Zealand school children of yesterday and to-day. It also had the educational and psychological purpose of discovering more exactly the particular nature of New Zealand children in contrast to those of other countries as manifested in their play. Mr Sutton-Smith, who was the Victoria College nominee for the Rhodes Scholarship is carrying out this work as part of a New Zealand University research scholarship. Besides investigations carried out at five Dunedin schools, he has also visited many early settlers’ and old people’s, homes. There he has been able to learn of many games once popular but now defunct. How many of another generation, for instance, will remember such games of their school days as Stagknife, Tip Cat, Fly the Garter, Bull in the Ring, Buck-buck, Hot Cockles, Cunning Joe, Honey Pots. Chivvy Chase. Fire on the Mountains, Jingo Ring, Jolly Miller, and Green Gravel? These games, all of which were played in some locality or another in the early days of Otago, have gone. When did they disappear and when were they last played? Traditional games still played in school playgrounds, at picnics and parties, include Oranges and Lemons, Nuts in May, Farmer in the Dell, Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses, Two’s and Three’s, Hide and Seek, Musical Chairs, Hide the Thimble. Blind Man’s Buff, Postman’s Knock, and 1 Wrote a Letter. The rise and fall of picnics has-- largely determined which of these traditional dramatic games would carry over into the lives of the children.

The games of skill such as tip-cat, Stagknife, and Fly the Garter have been displaced by outlets for skill in the adult-organised sports such as football and cricket. With so much competition for their time, modern youngsters have less opportunity to develop skill in spontaneously maintained games. Marbles, which is still one of the top-line favourites with most boys, has almost entirely changed its nature from a game of skill to one of wit. The old movements are still important, but the boys who can most quickly cry “sleets,”

“ nuts,” “ tracks,” “ many,” “ dubs,”- or one of innumerable other terms will win the game. Observations' made to date have suggested to Mr Sutton-Smith that it is perhaps unwise to speak of these folk games as strictly seasonal. They arrive rather as waves of fashion, varying in time from school to school, except where the areas of different schools overlap and the influence of one can be felt in another. Any one school may have certain regularities from year to year which often can be explained in terms of climatic factors, the nature of the school playground, and commercial enterprise. “ It is clear,” said Mr Sutton- Smith, “that the seasons were once much more strictly observed than they are to-day, but the transportation of these games across the world and the different climatic and social conditions of this country have taken us far away from the rites and customs with which they were originally associated so that their seasonal nature has become at best blurred and indistinct.”

During the past few days, he found, for instance, that although almost every child at the North-East Valley School was playing tops at every available opportunity, tops are not being played at any of the other schools. Will it spread? It is interesting too. to learn that the game was played by one or two pupils last year, but because an adjacent shop could not meet the demand for tops, the same died out.

While some of the old favourites still persist, the most popular ones with the boys and girls to-day are various form of Tig. Bar the Door—alternatively known in other parts of Dunedin as British Bulldog. Black Peter. By the Door, King Caesar Chinese Wall, and Fruit-Steps and Strides, Cat and Mouse. Statues. Rotten Egg (far removed from the original), and Cabbages, originally Honey Pots. The investigation had proved most fascinating, Mr Sutton-Smith said and he was to pursue it in North Otago and South Canterbury in the next few weeks. He would welcome any relevant material which might be sent to him care of the Physical. Education Branch of the Education Board.