THE CARD GAME "HIGH LOW JACK"
I haven't come across any attribution of this name source online, but I strongly believe that the children's hand clap rhyme "High Low Jack A Low" ("Hi Lo Jack-a-lo" got its name from the card game "High Low Jack".
Here's information about the "High Low Jack"
From http://www.woodburystrings.com/bands-for-hire/high-low-jack/
"HIGH-LOW-JACK is one of several names for an old-time card game that originated in the 1600s in England and is still very popular there. Known as All-Fours in England, it was the most popular gambling game in America until after the Civil War when Draw Poker began to overshadow it. It continued to be popular throughout the 19th century, and was most commonly known as Seven Up or Old Sledge. It is still popular today in various forms including Pitch or Auction Pitch.
Old Sledge is also the name of a West Virginia fiddle tune"...
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Excerpt #2
From https://www.denexa.com/blog/all-fours/ "All Fours (A.K.A. "Seven Up"
"All Fours, also known as Seven Up, is a trick-taking game for two to seven players (although three to five is the most common, and four is probably the optimal number). All Fours is a very old game, originating in English pubs; it appears in game books as far back as The Compleat Gamester from 1674. Its rules have gradually changed over the years, but the central premise of the game—scoring points for high, low, jack, and game—has remained unchanged.
All Fours has the distinction of being the first game to use the term jack, referring to the point for collecting what was then called the knave of the trump suit. Over time, the term jack began being applied to the actual card and not just the point it awarded. By the time indices became standard on playing cards, the most junior of the court cards bore a letter “J”, and knave for a rank of playing cards was simply a linguistic curio."...
****Excerpt #3
from https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/high-low-jack-and-the-game.3591403/
[Numbers are added for referencing purposes only.]
1. enkidu68, .Jul 4, 2019
"Hi folks, this is cited from Wellingborough Redburn by Hermann Melville (1849)
Question: What is it meant by “high and low”? Waves of the sea? I am aware of that Jack also means a simple sailor.
**
"It's the name of a card game. For more, see Pitch (card game) - Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_(card_game)
-snip-
Here's an excerpt from that Wikipedia article:
"Pitch (or "High Low Jack") is the American name of the English trick taking game of Blind All Fours which, in turn, is derived from classic All Fours (US: Seven Up). Historically, Pitch started as "Blind All Fours", a very simple All Fours variant that is still played in England as a pub game.[1] The modern game involving a bidding phase and setting back a party's score if the bid is not reached came up in the middle of the 19th century and is more precisely known as Auction Pitch or Setback."...
-snip-
The bold font was used in that article.
**
3. dojibear, July 4, 2019
"This is a trick-taking game. A "trick" means each player lays down one card, and one of the cards beats the others and "wins" the trick.
HIGH means winning a trick with the highest trump card
LOW means winning a trick with the lowest trump card
JACK means winning a trick with the trump Jack"...
4. Andygc, Jul 6, 2019
..."The title refers to the possibility of winning four game points by being dealt both the highest and the lowest trump in play, capturing the Jack of trumps and winning the greatest number of card-points.
**
5. Andygc, Jul 6, 2019
"enkidu68 asked what was meant by high and low. The answer is that the words refer to the high and low trump cards in the game, thereby giving it one of its names. The name also includes Jack, being a card in the pack which, when a trump, has a significant role in the play of a hand. The words high and low in the name of the game have no nautical connection whatsoever. The game, as it happens, was recorded before the first recorded use of <i>Jack</i> to mean a sailor."...
-snip-
The words written in italics were given that way in that discussion thread.
Here's some information about the history and meaning of the word "trump" in card games:
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_(card_games)
"A trump is a playing card which is elevated above its usual rank in trick-taking games. Typically an entire suit is nominated as a trump suit; these cards then outrank all cards of plain (non-trump) suits. In other contexts the terms trump card or to trump refers to any sort of action, authority or policy which automatically prevails over all others.
The introduction of trumps is one of only two major
innovations to trick-taking games since they were invented; the other being the
idea of bidding.[1] Trump cards, initially called trionfi, first appeared with
the advent of Tarot cards in which there is a separate, permament trump suit
comprising a number of picture cards.[2] The first known example of such cards
was ordered by the Duke of Milan around 1420 and included 16 trumps with images
of Greek and Roman gods."...
-snip-
These words were given in italics on this page.
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REFERENCE TO THE GAME "HIGH LOW JACK" IN THE AMERICAN FIDDLE SONG "OLD JOE CLARK"
The 19th century United States fiddle song "Old Joe Clark" often includes this verse:
Preached all over the plain,
The only text he ever knew
Was "high low jack and the game".
-snip-
Based on the comments that I quoted above from that "word references discussion, "and the game" means "[that] wins the game".
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WHERE ARE THESE HAND CLAP RHYMES FOUND?
According to comments that I found online, examples of "High Lo Jack -A-Lo", and similarly spelled names such as "Hi Lo Piccolo" and "Hi Lo Chickalo" are found in Britain, Canada and New Zealand. It's likely that examples of these hand clap rhymes are also found in Australia although I haven't come across any Australian examples yet. I also haven't come across any United States examples of "Hi Lo Jack-a-lo" or similarly spelled names for that hand clap game.
I believe that the names for the American children's recreational rhymes/cheers that are known as "Gigalo" or "Jigalo" (and similar spellings) are folk processed forms of "High Lo Jack-a-lo" name for a hand game.
This concludes Part I of this two part pancocojams series.
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