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Games Long Ago

Remember long ago when children took to blowing into Nintendo cartridges whenever a game appeared frozen or did not launch? Well, long, long ago, before the frustration with the cartridges, there were the games that did not freeze (unless it was an actual game of “freeze tag”) nor glitched (unless someone got angry and took the skipping rope or ball home).

As Joy Lawrence tells us in her Caribbean Creoles (2005 edition):

Before the electronic revolution, Caribbean children played outdoor games among themselves. We played game of every description — games that allowed the kind of interaction and togetherness that was so effervescent that today’s adults look back at those days with nostalgia and feel a sense of pity for today’s children.

There was a wide variety of games including hand-clapping games, ring games, marble, cashew and stone games; skipping games, ball games and games that called for dexterity, agility or ingenuity. (Pg 51.)

Remember “There’s a brown gyal in de ring”? That indeed called for some dexterity of the waist!

There’s a brown gyal in the ring

Tra la la la la

Brown gyal in the ring

Tra la la la la

For she loves sugar and I love plum

Show me your motion …

(Lawrence, pgs 55-56).

Benjamin, Lindel. Show me you motion. Caribbean Creoles by Joy Lawrence. 2005 pg.55

Also, remember the ACB 1999 calendar that fed our nostalgia with depictions and descriptions of childhood games of a time gone by? They say, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. May the following five thousand words be pleasingly nostalgic. May they even persuade you to revive these games!

Pages from ACB 1999 Calendar, as scanned and provided by the Museum of Antigua and Barbuda.

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