The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland Volume Ii Part 118

It is then clear that dances accompanied with song and pantomimic action have been used by men and women from the earliest period of which we have record, at all times and upon all occasions. In times of joy and mirth, sorrow and loss, victory or defeat, weddings and funerals, plagues and pestilences, famine and plenty, civilised and savage alike dance, act, and sing their griefs and their joys. The G.o.ds of all nations have been worshipped by pantomimic dance and song, their altars and temples are encircled by their worshippers; and as the occasion was one of fear or joy, and the G.o.d entreated or terrified by his followers, so would the actions and voices of the dancers be in accord. When once certain actions were recognised as successful, fitting, or beautiful, they would tend to become repeated and stereotyped, and the same form would be used for other G.o.ds, other occasions, and other customs where the requirements were similar or the same. The circle dance, for instance, after being performed several times would necessarily become a part of the religious customs or ceremony, and form a part of the ordinary religious observance. It would become particularly a.s.sociated with the place where it was first inst.i.tuted, and might be used to inaugurate other festivals. We know that the early Christians when taking over to their use the temples and altars of their so-called heathen predecessors, or when erecting a church where a temple had previously stood, held their worship there and performed their dances to their G.o.d as the heathens had done to theirs. The custom of encircling a church on its festival day existed until lately in several parishes in England, and this could only be a descendant of the custom once held sacred by all the followers of one belief, demonstrating by their action in group form the fact that they all believed in the same thing and held together, by the clasp of hands and the dance round, their determination to hold to and keep to it.

If these customary dances obtained and have survived in religious ritual to the present day, is it not to be expected that we should find survivals in dance form of non-religious customs which also impressed themselves strongly on the minds of the people? Births, marriages, deaths, the sowing and gathering in of the crops; the protection of cattle from disease and animals of prey; the necessity for water and fire; the protection of the house and the village-have all helped to surround these events with ceremonials which have lasted, and been transmitted from generation to generation, altering to suit later ideas, it is true, but preserving through all some trace of the events which first called them into existence.

It is because of this tendency to believe more in the power of expression by action, than in the power of expression by language alone, that dramatic action and gesture have formed such a necessary part of representation of custom as to become an integral part of it. Limited as is our knowledge of the popular plays performed about the country by troops of strolling players before the age of the written play, we know that their chief attraction must have been the dramatic rendering of characters and events personified by certain well-known actions of the actors, accompanied by special style of dress, or portions of dress, which were recognised as sufficient in themselves to show who and what was being personified. The story was shown more by action than by words; the idea being to present events to the onlooker, and impress them on his mind. It is in these dramatic performances of what was expected we have the germs of the dramatic art that afterwards developed into the regular play or drama. Every important custom of life was probably depicted by pantomimic action. We have, first, words, describing the events, sung or said by a chorus of onlookers and dancers, afterwards a short dialogue between the chief characters taking the place of the chorus, and then, as the number of characters were increased, the representations become something that could be performed independently, without the need of a particular season or custom to render it intelligible.

At this stage of the primitive drama the characters merely present actions of the _dramatis personae_ time after time, always performed in the same manner, and this would produce conventional methods of presenting certain events. We know that events of a religious nature were presented in the same manner by the Church. This must have been in consequence of the attraction plays possessed as depicting pagan religion and events of ordinary life and manners and customs. It is easily conceivable that before the era of books and literature, a rough sort of presentation of life, present and past, would be eagerly welcomed; and it would not be until the advent of a writer who developed the individual acting, at the expense of the event depicted, that what we know as a play could be written.

Mr. Ordish, in his study of Folk drama, published in the Folk-lore Society's journal, has conclusively proved the development of the drama independently of the miracle and mystery plays of the Middle Ages, or from the old Greek plays, and this development has taken place through the action of the people, always accustomed to the influence of dramatic representation. Hence in the remains of the traditional games we have preserved a form in which we can see the beginning and early development of the drama. When once the line form was firmly established as an indication of two opposite parties, it would be used for such indication wherever it was required, and thus it became the common property of the children's game and the early stage. The remains of the line and circle form, as denoting opponents and friendly communion can, I think, be traced in old plays and old methods of acting.

In old pantomimes, the demons or evil spirits and their followers enter on one side and stand in lines; the good fairy and her followers enter on the opposite side and stand in line; the princ.i.p.al characters advance from the line, and talk defiance to each other. We do not have a circle form on the stage, but a half-circle, seated on the stage, is or was until comparatively lately a method of representing a social or family party. Every one who has seen a mummer's play performed, either in or out of doors, will be aware that the same method obtains in them-the performers are all on the stage or stand together at once, walking forward as each one's name is mentioned, saying his allotted part, and then standing back again, while the next player has his turn.

The action in these plays has remained in stationary form; as far as the method goes there has probably been very little difference in the manner of presenting them for a long period of time.

These traditional games are valuable, therefore, for the information they afford in a direction not hitherto thought of, namely, in the study of the early drama. If the drama can be seen in its infancy anywhere, surely it can be seen in these children's plays.

The study of children's games takes us, therefore, into several departments of research. Many traces of customs that do not belong to modern life, customs that take us back to very early times indeed, are brought before us. The weapons are bows and arrows, the amus.e.m.e.nts hunting and hawking; animals are found in such close relationship with human beings, that only very primitive conditions of life would allow: contests between men and women occur in such a way that we are taken back to one of the earliest known customs of marriage, that known as marriage by capture-then from this stage to a later, where purchase or equivalent value obtains; then to a marriage with a ceremony which carries us back to the earliest forms of such ceremonies. That such customs can be suggested in connection with these games goes far to prove that they, in fact, originate the game-that no other theory satisfactorily accounts for all the phenomena.

In looking for the motive power which has caused the continuity of these customs to be practised as amus.e.m.e.nts, we have found that the dramatic power inherent in mankind supplies the necessary evidence, and from this stage we have been led to an interesting point in the early history of the drama and of the stage. It is not, therefore, too much to say that we have in these children's games some of the oldest historical doc.u.ments belonging to our race, worthy of being placed side by side with the folk-tale and other monuments of man's progress from savagery to civilisation.

ALICE B. GOMME.

THE END