Games
These are games people played in Belarusian villages and you can play them here. Hardly any of them is found nowhere else. The ethnographers are quite frank about that. But each has something of its own: the words, the tune, the thing in your hands, the day of the year it was played on. That is what this section is for.
In how they work, these games are much the same as their Russian, Ukrainian and Polish cousins. What differs is not the rules but the language, the tune, the equipment and the occasion. That is a far better story than arguing over uniqueness. And unlike the argument, it happens to be true.
"Ката пячы"
A cat is shaped out of buns and hung from the ceiling. You are hoisted up on a pitchfork, jump and bite, while everyone else tries to knock you off. Reach the tail and you have won.
"Лянок"
A song that follows flax from the field to the shirt: pulled, threshed, spread, broken, woven, bleached, cut, sewn. 8 verses, 8 movements. And the cloth at the end folds into a real pattern.
"Панначка"
Girls stand in a ring, a candle in every hand. Guard your own, blow out your neighbour’s. Nobody loses: the last flame goes round the ring and lights everyone up again.
"Грахі"
A ball is rolled along a row of holes. Miss and the sin is yours; hit and it goes to your opponent. The more sins you carry, the fewer throws you get: the guilty are in no position to punish.
"Жаніцьба Цярэшкі"
A make believe wedding at Kalady: the one game ethnographers call purely Belarusian. You are the matchmaker, pairing off couple after couple, while the song tells you what comes next.
3 rules of this section
- Every game has a source: who recorded it, where and in what year.
- Nothing added. The words “only in Belarus” appear only where the record says so.
- Where the record is silent and a number had to be invented, the page owns up to it.