Summary

Game named (and typed): 'Eenie, meenie, mink, monk...', 'My mother and your mother...', 'One tate, two tate, three tate four...', 'Father Christmas had some whiskers...', 'Round and round the butter dish...' (counting-out rhymes)
Alternative type: choosing games, counting-out, language play

Titled 'Picking He', document features handwritten transcriptions of five counting-out rhymes co-authored by Miriel Burvill and Joan Crowford, students at Collier Primary School, and written for Dr Dorothy Howard in 1955. Burvill copies out the rhyme 'Eenie, meenie, mink, monk...' and possibly 'Round and round the butler...'. Crawford transcribes the following rhymes: 'My mother and your mother were hanging out the clothes...', 'One tate two tate three tate four...' and 'Father Christmas had some whiskers...'. Counting-out rhymes are used to choose one player from the group. Usually said at the beginning of a game, their function is to determine who will be 'he' or 'it'.

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 description in blue ink on lined paper. Text written in two different hands; printed on one side only.

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