Hoop rolling

• 1. Global Antiquity And Origins

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  Hoop rolling has been documented since antiquity in Africa, Asia and Europe. A version of hoop rolling played as a target game is encountered as an ancient tradition among aboriginal peoples in many parts of the world. The game known as hoop-and-pole is ubiquitous throughout most of Africa. In Asia, the earliest records date from Ancient China. These records suggest the activity may go back to 1000 BC or further. In Europe, historical evidence points to Ancient Greece as another early center for the practice. Played as a target game, it is an ancient tradition widely dispersed among different societies. This wide distribution suggests a factor of rich symbolical possibilities rather than radial diffusion from a single center of invention.

• 2. Classical Greece And Rome

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  Ancient Greeks referred to the hoop as the trochus. Hoop rolling was practiced in the gymnasium where the prop was also used for tumbling and dance with different techniques. Hoops called krikoi were probably made of bronze, iron, or copper. They were driven with a stick called the elater. Greek vases generally show the elater as a short straight stick. The sport was regarded as healthful and recommended by Hippocrates for strengthening weak constitutions. Even very young children would play with hoops. Hoop driving is an attribute of Ganymede often depicted on Greek vase paintings from the 5th century BCE. During the Roman Empire circa 100-300 AD Romans learned hoop driving from the Greeks. They held the sport in high regard. Roman hoops were fitted with metal rings that slid freely along the rim. Martial noted these jingling rings warned passersby of the hoop's approach. The Latin term for hoop is also trochus at times referred to as the Greek hoop. The stick was known as a clavis or radius had the shape of a key and was made of metal with a wooden handle.

• 3. East Asian Traditions

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  In China the game may well go back to 1000 BC or further. Modern usage records show children playing with hoops over much of Europe and beyond. Children in late Edo period Japan were known to play the game. Early 19th-century travelers saw children playing with hoops across many regions. The game was a common pastime of Tanzanian village children of the African Tanganyika plateau circa the 1910s. Not long after it is recorded in the Freetown settler community. Christian missionaries encountered it there in the 19th century. In English the sport is known by several names including hoop and stick or gird and cleek in Scotland. Hoops would at times have pairs of tin squares nailed to the inside of the circle to jingle as the hoop was rolled. Up to a dozen such pairs of rattles might be placed around the rim of the hoop.

• 4. Native American Chunkey

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  A great number of widely separated Native American peoples play or played an ancient target-shooting version of hoop rolling currently known as Chunkey. Generally certain elements were present namely a prepared terrain over which a disc or hoop was rolled at high speed. At this point implements similar to spears were thrown. The game when played by adults was often associated with gambling. Very valuable prizes such as horses exchanged hands frequently. The game has been played by tribes such as the Arapaho, the Omaha, the Pawnee and many others. Since hoop and stick involves spear throwing it is thought to predate the introduction of the bow and arrow that took place around 500 AD. Canadian Inuit players divide into two groups. While the first group rolls the hoops, a large and a small one, the players in the other group attempt to throw spears through the hoops. The Cheyenne named two months of the year after the game: January is known as Ok sey' e shi his, Hoop-and-stick game moon, and February as Mak ok sey' i shi, Big hoop-and-stick game moon. Among the Blackfeet children would play the game by throwing a feathered stick through the rolling hoop.

• 5. Victorian Street Nuisance

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  In England children are known to have played the game as early as the 15th century. By the late 18th century boys driving hoops in the London streets had become a nuisance according to Joseph Strutt. Throughout the 1840s a barrage of denunciations appeared in the papers against The Hoop Nuisance. Their iron hoops were blamed for inflicting severe injuries to pedestrians' shins. The London police attempted to eradicate the practice confiscating the iron hoops of boys and girls trundling them through the streets and parks. That campaign however seems to have failed as it was accompanied by renewed complaints about the increase of the nuisance. In the 1860s the anti-trundling campaign was taken up by Charles Babbage. He blamed the boys for driving iron hoops under horses' legs with the result that the rider is thrown and very often the horse breaks a leg. Babbage achieved a certain notoriety in this matter being denounced in debate in Commons in 1864 for commencing a crusade against the popular game of tip-cat and the trundling of hoops. Other writers mocked the complainers as grumblers depriving the juvenile community of a healthy and harmless pastime.

• 6. Modern Variations And Competitions

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  Among the games played with the hoops besides simply trundling them are hoop races as well as games of dexterity. One such game is toll in which the player has to drive his hoop between two stones placed two to three inches apart without touching either one. Another such game is turnpike in which one player drives the hoop between pairs of objects such as bricks at first placed so that the opening is about a foot wide. After running all the gates the openings are made smaller by one inch and the player trundling the hoop runs the course again. Conflict games such as hoop battle or tournament can also be played. For this game boys organize into opposing teams that drive their hoops against each other with the aim of knocking down as many of the opponents' hoops as possible. The World Gird 'N Cleek championships are held annually in New Galloway Scotland. Winners include Andrew Firth in 1983, Alexander McKenna in 2009 and 2018, and Arthur Harfield in 2019. At Bryn Mawr College Wellesley College and Wheaton College the Hoop Rolling Contest is an annual spring tradition that dates back to 1895.