Folk Sports History

This article was written for the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World Sport, ed. David Levinson, 2005. Folk sports Folk sports is the general term for a diverse group of sports and games whose common element is their status as being “popular” or related to folk culture. Folk sports include especially traditional, ethnic, or indigenous sports and games, but also new activities that are based on traditional practices. Pub games, noncompetitive volkswalks, mass gymnastics, spontaneous sports of the working classes, and games and sports associated with festivals all may be termed as “folk”. Despite the origin of folk sport activities in the pre-industrial world, the idea of “folk sports” is itself an invention of the industrial age. Folk sports stand in opposition to the specialized modern sport and are more related to recreational Sport for all. Folk sports are based on festivity and community, rather than disciplinary rules and production of results. History Folk sports are neither one sport nor a well-defined group of sports, and so they have no single, linear history. They are as distinct in different countries as the words for “folk” in different languages: volk (Flemish, German), narod (Russian), peuple (French), folk (Danish, Swedish, English), popolo (Italian), and folk or people (English). The concept is European, but games around the world are often labeled as folk sports, too. Folk sports and the terminology of “folk” may be attached to a particular ideology, whether 1 rightwing (völkisches Turnen) or leftwing (sport popolare), but is in most cases neutral in relation to political ideas. Pre-modern folk games and festivities Folk sports as a concept did not exist before the industrial age, because there was neither "sport" in the modern sense nor the notion of "folk" with its modern connotations of a collective cultural identity. In earlier times, sport meant pastimes (hunting, falconry, fishing) of the upper classes, mainly the nobility and gentry, who distinguished themselves from the "folk." Also the aristocratic tournaments and the later noble exercises were exclusive, both by gender and class. Meanwhile, the common people, both rural and urban, had their own culture of festivity and recreation. Games and competitions of strength and agility were combined with dances, music, and ritual to form a rich array of activities at festivals and celebrations. These were connected with religious and seasonal events – often Christianized forms of pagan celebrations – like Christmas (Jul), erecting the May tree, Shrovetide and carnival, Midsummer dance (Valborg, St. John), harvest festivals, local fairs, a saint's day or church festival (kermis), marriage, revel, ale, and wake. Games brought suspense and excitement into a world of routine, and allowed flirting and physical contact between men and women. That is why the erotic and gender relations of traditional folk sports deserve special attention. Their diversity mirrors the inner tensions and distinctions inside the folk. Many pre-modern folk sports were reserved for men. When they were competitions based on strength such as wrestling, stone lifting, tossing the caber, and finger drawing, the "strong man" was the admired image, not the "strong woman”. In 2 Scotland, the "stone of manhood" (Gaelic claich cuid fir), placed beside the house of a chieftain, was used as a test of strength by the young men who had to lift it to prove their masculinity. Games of skill such as the bat and ball game tsan played in the Valley of Aosta, in which a batter hits the ball as far as possible into a field where it is caught by the other team, were also traditionally reserved for men. Participation by girls since the 1990s represents the recent transformation of tsan into a modern "traditional sport." However, even such “typical male” sports as wrestling could in pre-modern times be practiced by women. Japanese women engaged in sumo wrestling, onna-zumo, as early as the eighteenth century, and although they were forbidden to take part during the Meiji era, they began participating again at the end of the nineteenth century. In Brittany, women participated in belt wrestling (gouren). There were also folk competitions, which were especially for women. Women's foot-races or "smock races" were a typical feature of local events in England and Scotland from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. There were races for "respectable" women and races for women from the lower social classes including Gypsies, immigrant Irish women, and itinerant traders. The corresponding competitions for men were usually wrestling, cudgeling, stick matches, sack racing, and others, rather than foot races. Despite the popularity of women's races between 1790 and 1830, they disappeared and did not become the forerunners of modern women’s track and field. Women’s folk racing has survived in Württemberg, Germany, in the form of a race among shepherdesses that dates to the fifteenth century. As a modern folkloristic event, the competitors maintained the tradition of preventing each other from winning, thus causing much stumbling and laughing, traits that were characteristic of European folk 3 culture. Certain ball and pin games were also played by or even reserved for women. For example, in England, Shrovetide football pitted married women against unmarried women, and Shrovetide stoolball was a women’s sport that resembled modern cricket or baseball. In Aragon, Spain, women played and still play a special form of skittle, known as birlas de mullés. In the rich world of Native Americans folk sports, both men and women played many ball games, which were similar to each other, but had gender modifications. Women held also their own footraces and even horse races. Pima and Papago women raced while tossing sticks ahead. Among the Tarahumara in Mexico, women played hoop race, and in eastern Brazil, women took part in log running, though this normally was regarded as young men's test for marriage. Whereas men’s folk sport could have connotations of warrior training, women’s sport was nearer to ritual practices – including female shamanism – on one hand and joking with the human dimension of bodily prowess on the other. Anthropological interpretations as “fertility rites” should be regarded with critical reservation, as they mirror the one-sided view on the female from Western nineteenth century. Difference, togetherness, parody A fundamental feature of folk sports was the marking of differences. Just as folk competitions marked marital status differences by placing teams of married men against teams of bachelors, they also marked the status differences between men and women. Among the Sorbs of Germany, men engaged in ritual riding (Stollenreiten) while girls 4 competed in egg races (Eierlaufen) and other games of agility. Among the Inuit of Greenland, the drum dance (qilaatersorneq) of both women and men was an important ritual. Although men and women danced to the same music, women and men used different rhythms and movements. While marking differences inside the community, folk sports also contributed to social cohesion and a sense of togetherness – among women and men, among old and young people, and among people from different professions. However, there was considerable variation across cultures in the extent that men and women competed together. In Swedish folk sports, women participated only with men and did not compete against women. On the island of Gotland (off the coast of Sweden) there was a special type of festival, våg, during which teams challenged each other from parish to parish, with both men's sports and boys-and-girls' competitions. In the latter, girls were normally given certain advantages. A girl could, for instance, use both hands in the pulling competition (dra hank) while the boy used one hand only. These Swedish folk sports contrasted with the English smock races, where competitions between women and men were rare. Some folk sports were especially invented to promote togetherness. In Shrovetide races in Denmark, one boy had to compete with four, six, or up to twelve girls who used a handkerchief in a sort of relay. The result of the race was not important for the participants, as the prize (money or goods) would be given to the joint feast, regardless of, whether is was the boy or the girls who won. More important was the sexual joking that took place as the girls flirted with the boy to distract him and cause him to stumble. Flirtation was an important element of folk festivals. Along with dances, the folk 5 sports contributed to the playful encounter between boys and girls, between men and women. In societies where rigid segregation of the sexes was the norm, folk sports made flirtation possible by allowing participants to take a time out from the norm and to run and capture, to touch or even kiss members of the opposite sex. Many folk games and dances in northern Europe had a strong erotic component including Shrovetide pageants, Easter fire (which included dancing around a fire, jumping over a fire – often in couples, and flirtatious joking), Maypole festivals, Sankt Hans (midsummer night bonfire), and New Year’s fun. Folk sports were often arranged by so-called youth guilds or "game rooms" (Lichtstuben), which placed possible marriage partners together. Such activities are also known from Central Asia, where Kazakh youths played the White Bone Game (ak suiek) on warm summer nights. Two teams of young people, boys and girls, tried to find a bone that a referee had thrown as far as possible into the dark. While the two teams were searching and fighting for the bone, some pairs of boys and girls searched for erotic experiences and temporarily disappeared in the vast steppe. Folk sport, however, did not only affirm gender identity, but could also mock it in the form of parody.

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