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I've been rereading the comments on my December post about clapping and jump-rope rhymes, "Miss Suzie" in particular, and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
heron61's has struck a new chord with me. He said: "There is a fairly impressive body of general (some gendered, some not) children's culture, with slang, games, rhymes, jump rope songs, and similar things that are quite old. Like all non-mediated culture, it is changing now, as some of it is recorded and then used in movies or TV shows or placed on-line, but until this started happening, it was quite enduring."
(I think what he meant was that its existence endured even without regular media transmission, and that without such the specific forms were probably quite ritualized as well.)
Not news, but I turned my brainwaves towards "why" a little bit. What is so important about this, that so many young North American females learn rhymes like these? What cultural purpose do they serve?
About the only answer I can come up with is "bonding; identification of other members of the same culture". Something very tribal, really. If you know these rhymes, you are One Of Us. If you are taught them, that is your induction.
They have a secondary function as measures of skill, thus, "eldership": who can remember them, who can jump or clap the fastest (at least, so it always was in my neck of the woods); and to an even lesser extent, who can make up the best new lines (more among the older end of the spectrum, i.e., 13-year-olds, not 6-year-olds -- clapping-rhyme filk/fanfiction?? lol. Goes right back to the point about how most fanfic writers are female).
Y/N, thoughts?
heron61's has struck a new chord with me. He said: "There is a fairly impressive body of general (some gendered, some not) children's culture, with slang, games, rhymes, jump rope songs, and similar things that are quite old. Like all non-mediated culture, it is changing now, as some of it is recorded and then used in movies or TV shows or placed on-line, but until this started happening, it was quite enduring." (I think what he meant was that its existence endured even without regular media transmission, and that without such the specific forms were probably quite ritualized as well.)
Not news, but I turned my brainwaves towards "why" a little bit. What is so important about this, that so many young North American females learn rhymes like these? What cultural purpose do they serve?
About the only answer I can come up with is "bonding; identification of other members of the same culture". Something very tribal, really. If you know these rhymes, you are One Of Us. If you are taught them, that is your induction.
They have a secondary function as measures of skill, thus, "eldership": who can remember them, who can jump or clap the fastest (at least, so it always was in my neck of the woods); and to an even lesser extent, who can make up the best new lines (more among the older end of the spectrum, i.e., 13-year-olds, not 6-year-olds -- clapping-rhyme filk/fanfiction?? lol. Goes right back to the point about how most fanfic writers are female).
Y/N, thoughts?