There is probably no journey more captivating than the discovery of our roots. For us, the pursuit of where we come from—exploring time-honored traditions, for instance—is an important practice that reaffirms a strong sense of identity and belonging.
Despite centuries of displacement and severance, the symbolism of our ancestors’ actions never ceases to enrich our culture and reinforce the bonds of humanity. It is forever alive in our world, functioning as a mode of communication between humans and spirituality. The rituals of African hand games specifically, is one more shining example of this everlasting influence.
As children, when many of us simultaneously danced, clapped and chanted the lyrics to ditties like “Miss Mary Mack”, “A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea” and “Down, Down Baby”, we always knew they were special. We also possessed the license to embrace them as our own. While it can be presumed many of us at that age didn’t fully understand how we were preserving a rich part of the diaspora’s culture, that is precisely what Black girls’ hand games do. And a new film is taking aim at amplifying the impact they’ve had on not only America’s creative landscape but on artistic spaces around the world.
Out now, Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games shines a necessary spotlight on the often ignored yet dynamic world of hand games and the young Black girls who play them. Co-directed by psychiatrist Joe Brewster and author Michéle Stephenson, the eighteen-minute documentary honors traditions of community, storytelling and artistry, by way of the energy, resilience and shared expressions of young, Black females.
The film is yet another example of why it is critical to hear and know Black stories from around the globe and how, Black girls in particular, have often led the way on shaping and evolving history. The combined syncopated beats, gestures and rhyming verses of hand games hail from the ancient Sub-Saharan African rituals of call and response, dance and body percussion invented by females, to denote participation in public gatherings like funerals, weddings, civic or religious congregations. Enslaved Africans carried these traditions to the Americas, where it was heard across the plantations of the Deep South, and have inspired the development of Black American culture for generations.
“Hand games were a major factor in how we experienced the world as Black girls,” attorney Tashira Halyard tells the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (Halyard’s background is in education and child advocacy). “There was this script that was the background of our lives, based on the games we played.”
In the book, The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop, author Kyra D. Gaunt (she is an ethnomusicologist, Black girlhood studies advocate and professor at the University at Albany in New York State) notes that hand games are one of the ways Black girls “learn the ‘rules’ of Black social identity and musical practice.” She explains how, through female companionship, the games typically possess a “melodic tune, or chanted lyrics that resemble an approach to rapping not only prominent in hip-hop culture, but one that lives in African American music-making since slavery.”
The short film chronicles the cultural history and influence of the games, with fascinating commentary from educators, ethnomusicologists and musicians who explain how its effect on style and individualism can be seen everywhere from the playground to social media videos. It also explores why so much of the influence of hand games in popular culture has been commanded by men when young girls were its true originators.
