Summary

Game type: 'Pop Goes the Weasel' (elimination game); 'Cops and Robbers' (chasing game)
Alternative types: games with music, running games

Handwritten descriptions of the chasing game 'Cops and Robbers' and the elimination game 'Pop Goes the Weasel' compiled by Ray Dart, an 11 year old student at Errol Street Primary School, for Dr Dorothy Howard in August 1954. To play 'Cops and Robbers', Dart explains that players are divided into a team of 'cops' and another of 'robbers'. He writes that the 'cops' chase the 'robbers', placing captured players in a guarded jail. Dart notes that 'Cops and Robbers' can be played in any location all year round. To play 'Pop goes the Weasel', Dart states that a person plays a piano. He explains that when the pianist stops playing, the other players must bob down. Dart notes that the last player to bob down is eliminated from the game. The last remaining child is declared the winner.

One of a collection of letters describing a children's game 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 paper. Features titles underlined in red pencil; text written on one side only.

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