Today we continued our inquiry into musical games by looking at a ring game from the African American culture in the USA. We discovered that this game was connected in several ways to the Caribbean game we learned last class because both games were developed by people who were brought to the countries as slaves. We also talked a lot about change, because even in our 50 minute musical class we discovered 2 different versions of playing this game. I wonder how many more versions of the game exist?A ring game is a game that is played in a circle; the circle symbolized equality and community - something that was very important to African American slaves.... and something that is also very important to us!
The game that we learned was called "Little Johnny Brown." Although we had a lot of fun playing this game, it does have quite a serious story behind it. The lyrics tell the story of Little Johnny Brown, who was a slave who picked cotton at a plantation. When he took his bag of cotton to his master to be weighed, the master said that the bag only weighed 20 lbs. Johnny knew that it weighed way more than that, and he was angry that his master was being dishonest, that following that day Johnny did everything he could to cheat his master; he put bricks, rocks, dead animals...anything heavy that he could find into his bag. When Johnny's mother found out, she asked Johnny to 'lay his blanket down' and dump the contents of the bag onto the blanket for her to see. She explained to Johnny that it is better to have an honest soul than to turn into a dishonest man like his master.
After reading the lyrics and talking about them, we decided that the song was about being honest and truthful at all costs - an important message.
The end of the song talks about buzzards (vultures) loping around, and we couldn't quite make sense of this, but after watching a video by Paula Larke (an African American Folklorist), we found this out:
The image of loping like a buzzard also refers to a tradition dating back to the days of slavery. Sometimes a slave would die in the field and get dragged off to the side so as not to slow down the work. At the end of the day, the other slaves would find their friend and perform a dance with the motions of a buzzard, escorting their friend’s spirit as it soared up to heaven.
This is also a game about taking risks and improvising because in the middle of the circle or ring is one person who can take the opportunity to 'show off' - they can dance and express themselves in any way they want to and the rest of us will copy their movment! If you want to see the actions for the game, have a look at our game bank
The game that we learned was called "Little Johnny Brown." Although we had a lot of fun playing this game, it does have quite a serious story behind it. The lyrics tell the story of Little Johnny Brown, who was a slave who picked cotton at a plantation. When he took his bag of cotton to his master to be weighed, the master said that the bag only weighed 20 lbs. Johnny knew that it weighed way more than that, and he was angry that his master was being dishonest, that following that day Johnny did everything he could to cheat his master; he put bricks, rocks, dead animals...anything heavy that he could find into his bag. When Johnny's mother found out, she asked Johnny to 'lay his blanket down' and dump the contents of the bag onto the blanket for her to see. She explained to Johnny that it is better to have an honest soul than to turn into a dishonest man like his master.
After reading the lyrics and talking about them, we decided that the song was about being honest and truthful at all costs - an important message.
The end of the song talks about buzzards (vultures) loping around, and we couldn't quite make sense of this, but after watching a video by Paula Larke (an African American Folklorist), we found this out:
The image of loping like a buzzard also refers to a tradition dating back to the days of slavery. Sometimes a slave would die in the field and get dragged off to the side so as not to slow down the work. At the end of the day, the other slaves would find their friend and perform a dance with the motions of a buzzard, escorting their friend’s spirit as it soared up to heaven.
This is also a game about taking risks and improvising because in the middle of the circle or ring is one person who can take the opportunity to 'show off' - they can dance and express themselves in any way they want to and the rest of us will copy their movment! If you want to see the actions for the game, have a look at our game bank
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