Hi Day,
I remember Rhymes not only beiing used fro the clapping games but for
jumping rope. I don't remember specific rhymes but they were used during
group rope games with two girls throwing the rope while one or two jumped.
This would be from 1951 to 1956 when I was between 6and 11. I was raised in
Memphis Tennessee and over the last 30 years while living in Atlanta have
observed the same games here.
Pat LoRusso
----- Original Message -----
From: Day Brown <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 1999 3:32 PM
Subject: Oral Tradition
> There is some debate on the veracity of oral traditions
> which have been used to explain the character of artifacts.
> There is always the question of contamination by the spin
> that might exist due to researcher bias or the effect of
> later documents coloring early ideas.
>
> I've seen film clips of girls in many parts of the world
> playing a kind of clapping game, during which they speak
> a rhyme while clapping hands, knees, and the partner's
> hands in rhythm. I know of no written source for these
> bits of poetry; they are, so far as I can tell, a completely
> oral tradition,- even in thoroughly literate cultures.
>
> Being an American male, I never learned any, but I recall
> watching girls do now exactly as they did 50 years ago, and
> wonder what we might learn by examining the oral tradition,
> and seeing if we can, where it comes from. I find it all
> the more remarkable in that it was always performed by the
> girls between 7 & 14, existing only for a few years among
> any particular peer group, instead of being handed down by
> the mature elders.
>
> Presumably, this list is global, and members will at one
> time or another be found in all parts. Is this tradition
> global? Is there a common thread in the poetry? Is the
> meter always the same? Is the format as fixed as a sonnet?
> Or, are there several different routines? How much
> variation is there in a totally oral tradition?
> uncopywritten material; do whatever you want with it.
> -- Arachne V1.50;beta, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://home.arachne.cz/
>
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