Item HT 41463 Document - John Shorten, Addressed to Dorothy Howard, Description of Party Game 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey', 25 Aug 1954

Summary

Game type: 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey' (party game)
Alternative types: blindfold games

Handwritten description of the party game 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey' compiled by John Shorten, an 11 year old student at Errol Street Primary School, for Dr Dorothy Howard on 25 August 1954. To play, Shorten explains that each player is blindfolded and given a pin with a tail attached. He writes that players are spun around five or six times before they attempt to correctly place the tail on an illustration of a donkey placed on a wall. He provides a handdrawn, annotated diagram to illustrate his description.

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 descriptions in blue ink on paper. Features a hand drawn, annotated illustration in pencil along lower portion; text written on one side only.