Ringolevio (also spelled ringalevio or ring-a-levio)[1] is a children's game which originated in the streets of New York City, where it is known to have been played at least as far back as the late 19th century.[2][3][lower-alpha 1] It is one of the many variations of tag.[4] In Canada, the game is known as Relievio, a name which was also used in Boston and Ireland in the 1950s. It is also, in some places, known as coco-levio.[5]
American activist and author Emmett Grogan wrote a fictionalized autobiography called Ringolevio,[6] which was published in 1972. Grogan wrote: "It's a game. A game played on the streets of New York, for as long as anyone can remember. It is called Ringolevio, and the rules are simple. There are two sides, each with the same number of players. There are no time limits, no intermissions, no substitutes and no weapons allowed. There are two jails. There is one objective."[7]
The game typically splits players into two teams, one of "hunters" and one of "prey". A confined area called "jail" is marked. Games often have set boundaries of how far from the jail pursued players can go.[11]
The goal of the hunting team is to catch the "prey" by grabbing hold of them and performing a chant.[12] This chant varies between regions, with different versions of the game using chants such as "chain chain double chain, no break away" and "Ringolevio, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3".[13] If the pursued person breaks free at any point during this brief recitation, the person is not caught and can still play. If the chant is finished, the hunter takes the prey to jail (also called the "base" in some variations) and the captive is considered "out".[14]
The prey can free captured team members by entering the jail without being caught, tagging the captives and shouting, "All in! All in! Free-all!" (other phrases used include "All in, all in, all in, free allo" and "Olly olly oxen free").[15]
In popular culture
In addition to Emmet Grogan's book, the game is mentioned in:
French singer Little Bob called his 1987 album and the title track "Ringolevio".
The rapper Notorious B.I.G. mentions the game, calling it "coco-levo", in the song "Things Done Changed" on his album Ready to Die (1994). He notes that the game is no longer played and this is a symptom of social decline in inner city ghettos.[24]
Ring-a-levio is mentioned in rapper 2pac's song "Old School".
Lyricist Robert Hunter mentions "On the bank where children play 'ring a levio'" in his 1975 song "Tiger Rose".
Relievio is mentioned in Boston-based band Damone's song "On My Mind".
The song "Ringolevio" on the album Snowmads (2019) by hip hop group Onyx.
In an episode of Brooklyn Bridge, the kids and adults play Ringolevio as part of their indoor rainy day olympics.
Notes and references
Notes
↑ Before the first World War, one of the greatest games kids played was Ringolevio. In front of the Grace Church on East 92nd Street and Church Lane, each weeknight we formed a circle of 10 or 12 of us in two teams. The ones who went to hide would then try to sneak back without being caught by one of the guardians of the circle. If a boy managed to get in without being caught, he would yell, "Ringolevio!" and free everyone that had previously been caught. This went on until about 9 p.m. when we had to go home. Denton, John (2006-11-23). "Playing Ringolevio In Front Of Grace Church". Canarsie Courier. Brooklyn, New York. Archived from the original on 2015-09-23.
↑ I do not know, however, when my mother and father began their long, dispiriting war against each other. Most of their skirmishes were like games of ringolevio, with the souls of their children serving as the ruined captured flags in their campaigns of attrition.
↑ See this journal article, published in 1891: Stewart Culin (1891) [Jul-Sep, 1891]. "Street Games of Boys in Brooklyn, N. Y.". The Journal of American Folklore. 4 (14): 221–237. JSTOR534007.
↑ "The hi-spy class includes, among many others, ringalevio (Brooklyn name)" Dunn, Robert (June 1904), "Games of the City Street", The Outing, 44 (3): 275–276
↑ Sunday 8th June 1806. the 2 men returned from the villages. a number of the natives visited us and gave Frazer a fine young horse a number of the natives joined and got out our canoe which was Sank. our party exercised themselves running and playing games called base in the evening danced after the fiddle as the Indians were anxious to See them. "The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition". Retrieved 14 May 2016.
Hide-and-seek is a popular children's game in which at least two players conceal themselves in a set environment, to be found by one or more seekers. The game is played by one chosen player counting to a predetermined number with eyes closed while the other players hide. After reaching this number, the player who is "it" calls "Ready or not, here I come!" or "Coming, ready or not!" and then attempts to locate all concealed players.
The Diggers were a radical community-action group of activists and street theatre actors operating from 1966 to 1968, based in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Their politics have been categorized as "left-wing." More accurately, they were "community anarchists" who blended a desire for freedom with a consciousness of the community in which they lived. The Diggers' central tenet was to be "authentic," seeking to create a society free from the dictates of money and capitalism.
The Human Be-In was an event held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Polo Fields on January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture and introduced the word "psychedelic" to suburbia.
Robert Stewart Culin was an American ethnographer and author interested in games, art and dress. Culin played a major role in the development of ethnography, first concentrating his efforts on studying the Asian-Americans workers in Philadelphia. His first published works were "The Practice of Medicine by the Chinese in America" and "China in America: A study in the social life of the Chinese in the eastern cities of the United States", both dated 1887. He believed that similarity in gaming demonstrated similarity and contact among cultures across the world.
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Kick the can, is an outdoor children's game related to tag, hide and seek, and capture the flag, played with as few as three to as many as several dozen players. The game is one of skill, strategy, stealth, and stamina.
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Emmett Grogan was a founder of the Diggers, a radical community-action group of Improvisational actors in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. The Diggers took their name from the English Diggers (1649–1650), a radical movement opposed to feudalism, the Church of England and the British Crown.
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Skully is a children's game played on the streets of New York City and other urban areas. Sketched on the street usually in chalk, a skully board allows a game for two to six players. A sidewalk is sometimes used, offering greater protection from vehicular traffic; however, the asphalt on a typical city street is smoother and provides better game play than a bumpy concrete sidewalk.
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Sua Ghin Gnua is a two-player abstract strategy board game from Thailand, formerly known as Siam. Another name for the game is Tigers and Oxen. It is a hunt game played on a 5x5 square grid with only orthogonal lines. One player plays the three tigers, and the other player plays the twelve oxen. The board is empty in the beginning. Players first drop their pieces onto the board, and then are able to move them. The tigers can capture the oxen by the short leap as in draughts and Alquerque, but the oxen attempt to elude and at the same time hem in the tiger. Sua Ghin Gnua most resembles the tiger hunt games such as Bagh-Chal, Rimau-rimau, Main Tapal Empat, Catch the Hare, and Adugo since they all use a 5 x 5 square grid. But tiger games technically consist of a standard Alquerque board which is a 5 x 5 square grid with several diagonal lines criss-crossing through it which are completely missing in Sua Ghin Gnua. There are however some variants of Catch the Hare which have missing diagonal lines also. Another game that resembles Sua Ghin Gnua is from Myanmar called Tiger and Buffaloes which is a hunt game consisting of a 4 x 4 square grid with no diagonal lines. Myanmar happens to border Thailand geographically so there might be a historical connection between the two games. Another game from Myanmar is Lay Gwet Kyah that is presumed to be similar to Sua Ghin Gnua. Sua Ghin Gnua was briefly described by Stewart Culin, in his book Chess and Playing Cards: Catalogue of Games and Implements for Divination Exhibited by the United States National Museum in Connection with the Department of Archaeology and Paleontology of the University of Pennsylvania at the Cotton States and International Exposition, Atlanta, Georgia 1895 (1898). It's also briefly mentioned by H.J.R. Murray in his book A History of Chess (1913). It was also described by R.C. Bell, in his book Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations (1969).
Zohn Ahl is a roll-and-move board game played by the Kiowa Indians of North America. It is often cited as a typical representative of many similar Native American games. It is often equated with Tsoñä, also played by the Kiowa.
Adams & Co. (c.1860s-1880s) was a publishing firm in Boston, Massachusetts, in the mid-19th century. It specialized in spiritualist authors such as Hudson Tuttle and parlour games such as "Oliver Twist." John S. Adams ran the business, along with George L. Stafford. It operated from offices on Bromfield Street (c.1867-1873), Pearl Street (c.1875) and Tremont Street (c.1880).
The traditional games of New York City are one of the notable aspects of New York City's culture; many of them were brought over by the diverse mix of immigrants that settled in New York City, particularly from Europe. Many of these games used street furniture and other features of New York City's high urban density and were therefore also played in other cities of the United States. Most of these games have declined or disappeared in the modern era.
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