Games / Activities

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Games/Activities

Goat racing

This was once a popular sport, which declined by the 1960s. The jockey runs behind the goat which he controls by a rope, and the winning of a race depends on the speed of the jockey, as well as his ability to guide the animal to the winning post. These races were held at various venues, including the Garrison Savannah and Fontabelle, and attracted large numbers of spectators. They have been revived spasmodically as a tourist attraction but today they are no more.

Lagging/corking

This game, which has not been seen in recent years, was played with a soft ball, usually a lawn-tennis ball, or a home-made ball of cloth which had been beaten soft in a recent cricket game.

Somebody 'skies' the ball (that is, it is thrown high in the air), whereupon there is a scramble to retrieve it. The object is for the player with the ball to strike the person who is the easiest target. Once the ball is thrown, anybody can retrieve it and 'cork' any other player with it. Care is always taken not to strike another player in a sensitive part of the body. Any player who wants to drop out of the game simply says, 'I done play'!

Marbles

There are several different types of marbles in common use. The 'cherry seed' was of clear glass, with a coloured centre resembling the seed of the Bajan cherry. The 'goat-eye' was mostly white glass, looking somewhat like the eyeball of a goat, with small irregular patches of colour. The 'glassy' was a plain piece of glass, of a soft translucent green, with tiny bubbles inside. The 'stelly' was the ball from a motor-vehicle ball bearing, and varied in size accordingly. The 'cuppy' was made of stone, and the 'big-taw' was of glass, and several times larger than the ordinary glass marble.

Marbles had special uses and games of marbles had their own jargon; the large glass marbles called 'big taws' were used for striking other marbles, and 'steelies' (small ball bearings), because of their weight were also used for this purpose; the others were usually pawns for placing in the ling (circle), from where players took turns trying to knock them out.

Clothes buttons, in more common use before the zipper, played an important part in the game of pitching, and on occasion doubled as currency exchange among small boys. There are three values of buttons, the highest being the 'four', then the 'two', and then the 'oner'. The 'four' was the four-holed button found on male garments, though some two-holed buttons were classified as fours. The small tow- or four-holed buttons found on shirts were known as 'twos' as were ladies buttons'. Each two was valued at half a four. 'Oners' were rare and of little value, being badly damaged, or roughly made buttons.

The main purpose of acquiring buttons was for use as a currency in pitching. Many a boy who suffered the indignity of being broke, either through bad luck or inferior pitching skill, had to risk the wrath of his mother by taking buttons off his clothes. The most simple game involving buttons was when the players took turns trying to strike each other's marbles, for which the reward was a 'four', or to get the marble close enough to span the two with the fingers of one hand, for a 'two'. Sometimes the same game was played simply for twenty or ten points respectively, the first to score a hundred being the winner. This game was called 'ten and twenty'.

For a larger number of players, sometimes ten or more, a 'ling' was drawn, into which the players each placed a button, the object being to see who would hit the most buttons with their marble, the buttons in question being claimed by that pitcher. When marbles were used as pawns in the game of lings, the marble had to be struck clear of the 'ling'. All games had strict rules.

Another very popular game was 'Killer'. Three shallow holes, of teacup diameter were dug either in a straight line or in a triangle. These holes were usually about three long paces apart.

Pitching order was determined in the same way as in the other games. Much the same rules applied such as 'uptaws you to lines' (players who pitched out of turn had to return to the starting line and wait until last). The object of the game was for each player to get his marble into each hole, going in a pre-determined direction. After making three rounds, and returning to the first hole, a player became 'killer', whereupon he spent the rest of the game chasing the other players' marbles, trying to deliver the coup de grace. The player whose marble was struck first by the killer, was 'killed', and had to play last in the next game. Two killers remaining in the game, took first and second place respectively, depending on who killed whom.

Road tennis

This sport was played in Barbados as long ago as the 1950s and is believed to have originated here. It is called road tennis because it was originally played on courts marked out on streets.

A cross between table and lawn tennis, it can be called the poor man's tennis. All it requires is a home-made wooden paddle, somewhat larger than a table tennis racquet, a tennis ball with the fur removed and a net that is just a long piece of wood, with crude feet to enable it to stand. If a vehicle approaches while a game is in progress, the game is halted, the net is removed and play continues once the vehicle has passed.

The game is popular among local youths and courts can be found all over the island. Since 1976 it has been recognised a national sport, with its own association, the Barbados Road Tennis Association, which organises tournaments played on courts away from roads.

The court has been standardised at 20 feet (6 m) long by 10 feet (3 m) wide, with the net being 8 inches (22 cm) high, and there are written rules, more similar to table tennis than to lawn tennis.

There has been a spread of the game outside of Barbados, and it is known in several Caribbean territories, including Trinidad, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, Antigua and Jamaica, as well as in some parts of urban New York, taken there by Barbadian emigrants.

Stick fighting

Also known as stick licking, this ancient martial art originates in Africa, though the influence of similar traditions from elsewhere, such as those using the English 'single stick' or the Indian lathi, should not be discounted entirely. It was practised first as a means of self-defence, second only as a sport, almost exclusively among the black lower classes. There was a social stigma attached to it, partially as a result of the many brawls in which the art came into play, and partially because the prevailing social climate mitigated against any activity with its origins in Africa. Very few women of any class practised the art.

The weapon is a straight stick from a hardwood such as guava, black sage, or bullet wood. It is almost 40 inches (about 1 m) long, and 0.75 to 1 inch (2 to 2.5 cm) in diameter, though practice is done with a smaller stick.

Contests, called seitus, were very popular, and were held usually on Saturdays, or on bank holidays, but very seldom, if ever, on Sundays, and never at night since inadequate artificial lighting would have rendered them dangerous.

Stick fighting declined during the 1940s, perhaps because many young men returning to Barbados from the United States after the Second World War smuggled in illegal firearms, forever altering attitudes towards physical altercation. At the same time, boxing was becoming more popular locally, and was seen as a more attractive and dignified sport. This, along with the closure of many CASINOS, the popular venues for the seitus, has resulted in stick fighting becoming a dying art, practised by a small cadre of young men dedicated to preserving it.

Source: A-Z of Barbados Heritage