Summary

Game names (and types): 'Church' (hand and finger play), 'Rumours' (language play)

Handwritten descriptions of the games 'Church' and 'Rumours' compiled for Dr Dorothy Howard by Jan Drake, a student at Clayfield College, on 15 October 1954. Drake describes the hand and finger game 'Church', providing detailed hand drawn diagrams of the actions and reciting the accompanying rhyme. Drake also describes the language game 'Rumours'. To play, children sit in a circle. One child thinks of a sentence and whispers it to their neighbour. The phrase is whispered to each player before the final child announces it aloud. Drake notes that the final sentence can change significantly from its original form over the course of the game. She writes that it is a game suitable for indoor and outdoor play.

One of a collection of letters describing a children's games written to children's Folklorist Dorothy Howard between 1954 and 1955. Dr Howard came to Australia in 1954-55 as an American Fulbright scholar to study Australian children's folklore. She travelled across Australia for 10 months collecting children's playground rhymes, games, play artefacts, etc. This letter, together with the other original fieldwork collected by Dr Howard during this period, is preserved in the Dorothy Howard Collection manuscript files, part of the Australian Children's Folklore Collection (ACFC), Archive Series 3. The ACFC is an extensive collection documenting children's folklore and related research.

Physical Description

Handwritten game descriptions in blue ink on lined paper. Features several hand drawn, annotated diagrams. Text printed on both sides of page.

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