Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part I of a two part pancocojams series on the children's game "Hide & Seek" (also known as "Hide & Go Seek".
Part I showcases an African American children's rhyme that was used as a prelude to the chasing portion of "Hide & Seek" games. This rhyme is part of the Gullah culture of Georgia and is included in the book Step It Down: Games, Plays, Songs, Stories from Afro-American Heritage (University of Georgia Press, originally published in 1972, Brown Thrasher Edition, 1987). This rhyme is also included in Old Mother Hippletoe: Rural and Urban Children’s Songs New World NW 291 (1978).
Most of this post is a reprint of a post that was published in November 2014 on cocojams2, another blog that I curate that focuses on some examples of African American children's rhymes and cheers. This pancocojams post also includes an Addendum that presents information about the Gullah people.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/10/big-joe-turner-hide-seek-blues-song.html for Part II presents information about Big Joe Turner and showcases YouTube examples of the Blues song "Hide And Seek" as it was performed by that Bluesman. The lyrics for Big Joe Turner's "Hide And Seek" allude to the children's game "hide and seek" and include some rhyming verses that are similar to the Gullah children's hide and seek rhyme entitled "All Hid".
The content of this post is presented for cultural and recreational purposes.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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EXCERPT #1
From Portion of Step It Down: Games, Plays, Songs, and Stories from the Afro-American Heritage edited by Bessie Jones and Bess Lomax Hawes, (University of Georgia Press, 1987, pp. 182-184) [This excerpt is given as it was found in that book.]
"Children these day don't play like they used to play-nowhere-mine and no one else's. In "Hide and Go Seek" the children nowadays play it right quick and angry - I say angry, because if the one that's counting ask them, "Is all hid? sometimes they'll holler, "Not yet!" and sometimes they'll just throw off and give a kind of a "No!" and all that way...
But in my time coming up, when the person says, "Is all hid? he said it in a tone and the children answered him a tone. And those tones would combine together, which would make a beautiful play.
And the children don't count now-well, they really does count-nothing but counting. They says "Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten!" But in those days, we had a rhyme that we called counting. Such as, one would go to the base and lean up against a tree and not peeping, because it's not fair, you know, they would hide thetr eyes and lean against the base and he would say,
Honey, honey, bee ball,
I can't see y'all.
All hid?
And those children would holler back.
“No-o-o!”
And the counter would say,
Is all hid?
And the children would say
“No-o-o!”
And sometimes those children be right close to there-but not too close,you know, not too close for the law of the base, ten feet-but they don't be too far and they put their hands up to their mouth or put their heads down and say "No-o-o!" real soft. You see, that make him think they're way off! They sound like a panther!...And then it go on like this (singing):
I went to the river, I couldn't get across.
I paid five dollars for an old blind horse.
One leg broke, the other leg cracked,
And great Godamighty how the horse did rack.
Is all hid?
“No-o-o!”
Is all hid?
“No-o-o!”
I went down the road,
The road was muddy.
Stubbed my toe
And made it bloody.
Is all hid?
“No-o-o!”
Is all hid?
“No-o-o!”
Me and my wife and a bobtail dog,
We crossed that river on a hickory log.
She fell in,
And I fell off,
And left nobody but the bobtail dog.
Is all hid?
“No-o-o!”
Is all hid?
“No-o-o!”
One, two,
I don't know what to do.
Three, four,
I don't know where to go.
Five, six,
I'm in a terrible fix.
Seven, eight,
I made a mistake.
Nine, ten
My eyes open, I'm a looking!
And they know he's looking. In other words, he could stop right there at "one, two", and when he stop there, they know they better lay close because he maybe done left the base then because he say "One, two, I don't know what to do"! He's looking around then, see, let you know he'a about to leave the base. "Three, four, I don't know where to go", because they are all hid, see? "Five, six, I'm in a terrible fix"; see, he's looking someplace. "Seven, eight"-he didn't find nobody there-"I made a mistake!-see? Then he say, "Nine, ten, my eyes [are] open, I'm a-looking!" and he's going everywhere then, see?
But these children now don't have that kind of counting...and they won't leave the base! It worries me. I look at them and they won't leave the base, and when the others come, they expect to get their hundred-we called it a "hundred". The call it a base, but in my day, we called it "my hundred". If you make it to the base, if you outrun thee counter and get to the base, we called "my hundred". And you know, when they ask if all is hid, they ask, "All hid?" and they holler back "No!" and all that ....You know, it's no play. It's justa snap all the way through. It's no play in it....But we played.
-snip-
The following comments written by Bess Lomax Hawes in the introduction to Step It Down explain what Bessie Jones meant when she used the word "play":
Step It Down, pp xiv-xv
"By far the bulk of [Bessie Jones'] repertoire...she called "plays". Suddenly it occurred to me that the word "play" has more than one meaning; in addition to being, according to Webster's, "exercise or action for amusement or diversion", it can also be "a drama...a composition...portraying life or character by means of dialogue and action.
Using this second definition as a starting point, the special quality of fun the [Georgia] Sea Islanders were having became clearer. When they "played", they were constructing over and over again small life dramas; they were taking on new personalities for identification or caricature. They were acting."
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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
Bessie Jones' "All Hid?" chant is also included in Old Mother Hippletoe: Rural and Urban Children’s Songs New World NW 291 (1978). The text is almost exactly the same as that found in Step It Down except that record gives the line as "I paid five dollars for an old gray horse" instead of "old blind horse". That record's text also doesn't include Bessie Jones' comments about that chant. However, Old Miss Hippletoe... includes the following album notes written by Kate Rinzler about "All Hid?":
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EXCERPT #2
Record Notes From "Old Mother Hippletoe..." [notes written by Kate Rinzler]
"Hide-and-seek is one of the most widely played hiding games in this country and is known in a multitude of variations around the world. A nineteenth-century English count out for hide-and-seek is chanted:
One a bin, two a bin, three a bin, four,
Five a bin, six a bin, seven gie o'er:
A bunch of pins, come prick my shins,
A loaf of brown bread, come knock me down. I'm coming.
(Gomme, p.211: see Bibliography)
Black children playing hide and- seek in the South borrowed and revised such verses to sing as the seeker waited for the other children to hide.
The words of “All Hid” derive from three sources. The variations of the query “All hid?,” the responses from hiding children, and the counting out by ones, twos, and so on are commonplaces in hide-and-seek as played in England and America; the count out formula (“One, two...”) is a counting rhyme like the well-known “One, two, buckle my shoe”; and the verses about acquiring a lame horse to cross a river are borrowed from humorous songs of black tradition".
-snip-
ADDENDUM - INFORMATION ABOUT THE GULLAH PEOPLE
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullah
"The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, in both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. They developed a creole language, the Gullah language, and a culture rich in African influences that makes them distinctive among African Americans.
Historically, the Gullah region extended from the Cape Fear area on North Carolina's coast south to the vicinity of Jacksonville on Florida's coast. Today, the Gullah area is confined to the Georgia and South Carolina Lowcountry. The Gullah people and their language are also called Geechee, which may be derived from the name of the Ogeechee River near Savannah, Georgia.[1] Gullah is a term that was originally used to designate the creole dialect of English spoken by Gullah and Geechee people. Over time, its speakers have used this term to formally refer to their creole language and distinctive ethnic identity as a people. The Georgia communities are distinguished by identifying as either "Freshwater Geechee" or "Saltwater Geechee", depending on whether they live on the mainland or the Sea Islands.[2][3][4][5]
Because of a period of relative isolation from whites while working on large plantations in rural areas, the Africans, drawn from a variety of Central and West African ethnic groups, developed a creole culture that has preserved much of their African linguistic and cultural heritage from various peoples; in addition, they absorbed new influences from the region. The Gullah people speak an English-based creole language containing many African loanwords and influenced by African languages in grammar and sentence structure. Sometimes referred to as "Sea Island Creole" by linguists and scholars, the Gullah language is especially related to and almost identical to Bahamian Creole. There are also ties to Barbadian Creole, Guyanese Creole, Belizean Creole, Jamaican Patois and the Krio language of West Africa. Gullah crafts, farming and fishing traditions, folk beliefs, music, rice-based cuisine and story-telling traditions all exhibit strong influences from Central and West African cultures."
-snip-
Also, click http://www.yale.edu/glc/gullah/04.htm "Origin of the Gullah" for more information about this sub-set of African American culture.
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