Edited by Azizi Powell
[This is a complete reprint of the latest update of a 2014 post on this subject that was published on my cocojams2 blog. https://cocojams2.blogspot.com/2014/11/switching-places-ring-games-part-1.html. That post remains on that blog which features information and examples of English language children's recreational rhymes and singing games].
This is Part I of a two part cocojams2 series on switching places ring games. This post provides a general description of and some examples of those types of types of ring (circle) games...
Click http://cocojams2.blogspot.com/2014/11/little-sally-walker-ride-that-pony_9.html for Part II of this series. Part II provides text and video examples of two contemporary "switching places" circle games: "Little Sally Walker" (Walking Down The Street) and "Ride That Pony".
The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, and recreational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
-snip-
This post originally only focused on the two contemporary children's "switching places" singing games "Little Sally Walker (Walking Down The Street)" and "Ride That Pony". The Bahamian singing game "Rock My Cherry" was also mentioned in the originally version of this post.
In September 2026 I added references in this post regarding two additional (and much older) children's "switching places" singing games ""Little Johnny Brown" and "Whoa, Mule. Can't Get The Saddle On".
Information about and examples of these singing games can be found in their designated pancocojams posts.
****
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF SWITCHING PLACES GAMES
"Switching places" games is a term that I coined for a sub-set of ring (circle) games. These games can be considered a variant form of "show me your motion" games.
In standard "show me your motion games" the person in the center of the ring remains in the center and does a brief dance or other movement. The rest of the group who are forming the circle then tries to exactly imitate the movements that the middle person continues to do.
After these portions of the singing game, the middle person uses some strategy to choose the new middle person. One strategy is to walk up to a person forming the ring and immediately exchange places with that person. Another strategy is for the middle person to cover her or his eyes with one hand while turning around in the middle of the ring and pointing to the people forming the ring. At the end of the song, the person who the middle person is pointing to becomes the new middle person. The old middle person trades places with that person and the game immediately begins from the beginning.
In contrast, in "switching places" singing games, the middle person moves to face one particular person who remains standing in her or his place forming the ring (the circle). That person is sometimes referred to as the middle person's "partner". That partner might be chosen on purpose or randomly chosen. When the middle person does her or his movements, the person she or he is standing in front of must also do the same movement.
According to the different ways that these games are played, the rest of the group may simply stand and watch the two people perform movements or they might continue to sing and clap (and in some renditions also stomp their feet) to the beat. However, in "switching places games, the people forming the ring don't attempt to do the actions performed by the center person and her or his partner. After the old center person and her or his partner perform movements together (according to the words of that song), the old center person switches places with her or his partner who becomes the new center person and the game immediately begins again from the beginning.
Sometimes large groups have two (or more) center persons at the same time. Each one stands in front of another person in the ring, and plays the game as lyrics describe. Having more than one center person is probably a modification of the original format because adults directing the play experience (and the group members themselves) wanted to have as many people in the group participating in thee game as possible in the short amount of time that may be allotted for these games.
****
EXAMPLES OF "SWITCHING PLACES" RING GAMES THAT ORIGINATED WITH AFRICAN AMERICANS
I believe that the "switching places" singing games are of African American origin because of their words and because of their performance activities.
Given in no particular order, some examples of these switching places singing games are:
"Little Johnny Brown"
"Whoa, Mule. Can't Get The Saddle On"
"Little Sally Walker" (Walking Down The Street)
and "Ride That Pony".
****
AN EXAMPLE OF A "SWITCHING PLACES" RING GAME FROM THE CARIBBEANICA
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/07/examples-of-show-me-your-motion.html for a pancocojams post about the children's singing game from the Bahamas entitled "Rock My Cherry" and other Bahamian children's recreational ring plays (circle games).
Update: 2026] The video for that pancocojams post is no longer available. In that video, the performance of the singing game "Rock My Cherry" was performed with sensual hip winding and pelvic thrust dance movements. Those performances would probably be considered too sexualized by many Americans.
****
HOW OLD IS THE SWITCHING PLACES" METHOD OF CHOOSING THE NEXT CENTER PERSON IN RING GAMES?
I'm not sure how old this method of choosing the next center person is, but here are dates for some examples of "Little Sally Walker (Walking Down The Street) that I've found thus far:
The old "Little Sally Walker" Ring Game dates at least from the early 1950s (as per my recollections of that game in Atlantic City, New Jersey:
Little Sally Ann
Sitting in the sand
A weepin and a cryin
For a nice young man.
Rise, Sally, rise
Wipe your weepin eyes
Turn to the East
And turn to the West
And turn to the one
That you love the best.
****
LITTLE SALLY WALKER
Little Sally Walker,sittin’ in a saucer,
weepin' and cryin’ cause nobody loves her.
Rise Sally rise wipe your weepin’ eyes
put your hands on your hip,
and let your backbone slip.
Oh, shake it to the East;
Oh, shake it to the West.
Shake it to the very one that you love the best.
The game of Little Sally Walker is for ages 7 – 12
Here's a description of the action that accompanied this rhyme: Prior to song starting- Girls form a circle; one girl is chosen to be “Sally”
1st line- "Sally" sits down on the inside of the circle (as if sitting in a saucer) and pretends to weep and cry; the rest of the circle walks counter-clockwise holding hands and walking to the song’s beat
2nd line & line 3 -“Sally” remains inside the circle but now rises to stand in the center part of the circle and does what the rhyme is saying(wipes her eyes); the rest of the group is now standing still and claps their hands and stomps their feet to the beat.
3rd line & 4th line -Sally now stops and puts her hands on her hip and moves her hip into a dip and the girls in the circle who performed this rhyme stand still while "Sally" in the middle performs a movement.
As the rhyme progresses the children forming the ring try to exactly imitate Sally's movements (they shake their hips to movements the same time Sally does) on the words to the East the hips move to the right, and on the words to the West the hips move to the left.
Still standing in front of whoever Sally may stop in front of "Sally" continues doing the same dance or movement of her hips that she did previously.
5th- On the words you love the best Sally is standing still and facing the girl she stopped in front of, now the game is over; the former “Sally” rejoins the ring, and the new Sally immediately enters the center of the ring and the game begins again. When both boys and girls play this game together the game takes on a little more interest.
-Anna R., Cocojams.com, 5/8/2008
-snip
Anna Robinson's memories of the mid 1950's written when she was in her 60's.
This entry was reformatted for this post.
-snip-
Click http://cocojams2.blogspot.com/2014/11/african-american-singing-games-movement.html "African American Singing Games & Movement Rhymes (A-L)" for more examples of "Little Sally Walker" and its newer version "Little Sally Walker (Was Walking Down The Street)"
****
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND EXAMPLES OF TWO CONTEMPORARY "SWITCHING PLACES" CIRCLE GAMES
Early Collection Dates For "Little Sally Walker" (Walking Down The Street)
1999 - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (collected by Azizi Powell)
The oldest example of "Little Sally Walker" (Walking Down The Street) that I've found is one that I observed being played by African American girls (under age 12 years) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1999):
Little Sally Walker was walkin down the street.
She didn’t know what to do so she stood in front of me.
I said ooh girl do your thing.
Do your thing, Stop!
I said ooh girl do your thing.
Do your thing, Stop!
-African American girls (about 7-9 years old), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (North View Heights Public Housing Program), 1999; collected by Azizi Powell, 1999
****
A full description of its performance activity can be found in cocojams2: African American Singing Games & Movement Rhymes (A-L) link that is given above.
****
2001 - summer camp game, as mentioned by LNL in a 2004 comment posted to a Mudcat (online folk music forum) discussion thread: http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=4300#1126685 "Children's Street Songs"
LNL wrote that she first came across "Little Sally Walker (Walking Down The Street) and "Ride That Pony" when she was a camp counselor "three years ago" (resulting in 2001 as the year she saw those games). LNL described "Little Sally Walker (Walking Down The Street" as "Little Sally Walker" being reincarnated." Here's that example:
"Little Sally Walker,/walking down the street.
She didn't know what to do, so/she jumped in front of me and said:
'Hey, girl, shake that thing,/shake that thing like it ain't no thing.
Come on, girl, shake that thing,/shake that thing like it ain't no thing."
LNL also wrote that campers played the game "Ride That Pony". The words to that game are found in Part II of this series.
LNL's post implied that both of those games were new to her. But I'm not sure if those games were new to those campers. LNL also indicated that those two games were favorites of the campers and that staff often had to stop their performances from getting "too involved".
Unfortunately, LNL didn't mention how the camp was played, where the camp was. Nor did she give any demographical information about the campers. However, given that the majority of Mudcat bloggers are from the United States, and given that LNL also wrote that "We also did the fairly innocuous "Wisconsin Milk" song, and a ton of other call-and-responses that don't quite qualify as street games", a likely conclusion is that the camp was located in the United States.
That forum's archiving feature show that LNL only posted five times on Mudcat- all between February 1, 2004 and March 9, 2004. So the possibilities of retrieving demographical information from that blogger are quite slim. That said, I use "around 2001" as the oldest example that I've found for the "Ride That Pony" singing game.
****
2003 -A rhyme that includes "Little Sally Walker (Walking Down The Street" is included in the 2003 American movie "Soul Of Rock" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvGia9u1McM.
-snip-
The poster of that YouTube video rachelarmstrong (January 24, 2008) included the words to that rhyme on the video clip screen shot. The words she gave are:
Soul Sister Number Nine
Sock it to me one more time
Say Ungawa we got the power
Say Ungawa we got the power
Little Sally Walker's walking down the street
She didn't know what to do so she jumped in front of me
She said "go on girl, do your thing do your thing
go on, girl do your thing, do your thing. Stop!!
-snip-
As a (friendly) amendment to that transcription, I hear the two chanters saying "Say Unn Ungawa. We got the powa. Say Unn Ungawa. We got the powa."
****
"Ride That Pony"
2001-The oldest example of "Ride That Pony" that I've found is in the 2oo4 Mudcat comment by LNL (link given above). That comment mentions campers playing that game three years ago.
****
WHO PLAYS THESE GAMES
Unlike many ring games that are currently played in the United States, "switchng places" ring games are not only played by very young children but have also been adopted by older children, teenagers, and (usually young) adults. Furthermore, unlike many ring games, males appear to play these switching games much more readily and eenthusiastically than they play other singing or chanting games, with the exception of hand slapping games such as "Down By The Banks Of The Hanky Panky" and "Stella Ella Ola".
For children, the lightly competitive hand slapping games and the non-competitive "switching places" games may often be adult initiated (for instance, as part of an elementary school's school's music class). However, those games sometimes appear to be initiated by the children themselves.
For children, teens, and adults, those hand slaping games and the switching places games are played as "ice breakers" (getting to know people activities), as stress relieving activities, and "just for fun" by members of sports teams, cheerleaders, summer campers, performing arts groups, and school and university students.
"Ride That Pony" 's movements are indicated by that song's lyrics. But what makes "Little Sally Walker" (Walking Down The Street) fun to play and fun to watch is the different dances or moves that different center people do. As is the case with older "show me your motion" games, in "Little Sally Walker" (Walking Down The Street) each center person is supposed to perform a dance or movement that is different from those that were performed by any center person who camee before her (or him). That said, I've also come across videos of both of those games in which every center person does the same dance. Those videos are much less interesting to watch.
Additional text examples and video examples of those two games are found in Part II of this series.
****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment