Games People Played (June 1972 | Volume: 23, Issue: 4)

Games People Played

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Authors: Peter Andrews

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June 1972 | Volume 23, Issue 4

Salem, Massachusetts, is rooted deep in the stony New England heritage of America. The capacious and functional houses that ringed the common remain, superbly maintained reminders of their prosperous Yankee history. So does Nathaniel Hawthorne’s dark and brooding House of the Seven Gables, looking as if Matthew Maule’s curse could still be lurking in its secret passage. And, of course, there are Salem’s famous witches- nineteen of them hanged in 1692.

But Salem’s history is not all, not even primarily, somber. In the early 1800’s, before the advent of steam, which forced ships to seek deeper harbors to the south, Salem was a busy international port and one of the most cosmopolitan communities in America. Its doughty captains plied the Orient and Africa trades, bringing back large fortunes and endless romance.

“The fruits of the Mediterranean are on every table,” wrote the English traveller and author Harriet Martineau in the iSßo’s. “They have a large acquaintance with Cairo. … They have wild tales to tell of Mozambique and Madagascar. … Anybody will give you anecdotes from Canton and descriptions of the Society and Sandwich Islands. They often slip up the western coasts of their two continents; bring furs from the back regions of their own wide land; glance up at the Andes on their return; double Cape Horn; touch at the ports of Brazil and Guiana … and land, some fair morning, at Salem and walk home as if they had done nothing very remarkable.”

These sailors, who were often away from home as long as three years at a time, felt they had earned the right to enjoy themselves on their return. Along with cargoes of spices and furs, they brought back games like chess and Parcheesi from the Orient to help while away the pleasant Salem respites between voyages. Playing games soon became as much a part of Salem’s history as witchcraft and sailing ships. Many communities like to call themselves the capital of this or that, often on little more authorityother than a proclamation by the local Chamber of Commerce. Salem, however, prides itself on being the “game capital of the world,” and to a considerable degree history supports the claim.

The board game, which means exactly what it says, a game played on a board, while a peculiarly American pastime, is as old as the written history of man. At a site near Ur of the Chaldees, archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley discovered a few sets of a forerunner of backgammon, inlaid with lapis lazuli, which have been dated as early as 3000 B.C. Arab children in the Middle East today play something called the Hyena Game, which is far older than the Koran. Typical of many such supposedly idle pastimes, the Hyena Game makes an entertainment out of hazards that may face the player in real life. For example, the player tries to move a token representing his mother with a load of soiled laundry to a nearby water hole and have her