Bloody Winkum
Last year, I went to a reunion of folks who had been part of the Youth Program at Powell House, the conference center for New York Yearly Meeting which has been operating since the 1960s. I was amused to see a game they called “Winkum.”
Winkum, I told a few people there, had apparently “evolved” (or rather, devolved) from a game called “Wink” that my family introduced at Powell House in the early ’70s — the 1970s, that is. We taught Wink as it was done, and still is done, at ECRS — the Eastern Cooperative Recreation School, an organization that combines fun activities (games, folkdancing, dramatics, crafts, etc.) with training for those who want to lead these sorts of activities with other groups.
My speculation about the origin of the game may be totally wrong, or off in some of its particulars, but in lieu of other evidence I’ll stand by it for now.
Just yesterday, I was explaining Wink’s supposed provenance to a Powell House alum who was visiting my meeting in Philadelphia. Then today I found the game mentioned by Friend Tim Travis as having spread to Friends General Conference:
Tornado? My partner was somewhere not answering her cell phone so I just left her a message to call me from Oz if that’s where she was. Turned out she was not. She was in a gymnasium watching my youngest play a game called “wink” with the rest of the middle school kids. Wink is an FGC game, apparently. Wink is … well, don’t ask.
This prompted me to Google it, and hey, what d’ya know, the game is played by youngsters throughout liberal Quakerdom, including Britain where it’s known as Ratchet Screwdriver, and it has spread to the Unitarian-Universalists as well.
These youngsters are computer-savvy, and I know a lot of them are into the internet and such, so it’s interesting to find that Wikipedia has a fairly complete description of Wink, which was first posted in 2004 and has been extensively reworked since then.
The funniest part (if my own claim is correct about how the game got started in Quaker circles) is their origin story of when and how it was first played, an account which traces back to the very first Wikipedia post and has remained essentially unchanged until now:
Wink was originally played by groups of Young Quakers in the 1800’s. In the original version, a group of women would sit in chairs, arranged in a circle, with a young man standing behind each one. In this version of the game, which was something like musical chairs, a man without a partner (the “wink”) would get one of the women’s attention by winking at her, whereupon she would stand up and walk over to his chair. If the man behind her succeeded in putting his hands upon her shoulders before she stood up, she had to remain where she was.
Well, for youngsters today who grew up in the 1980s and ’90s, I guess the early 1970s are probably as far removed as the 1800s. It’s an interesting example of American folklore in action.
Now it so happens that I’m working on a web-version of an ECRS book, “Of Play and Playfulness,” which was compiled in the late 1980s. At the end of the webpage on Games is a description of the game as we played it at Powell House in the early ’70s.
It’s worth pointing out that the ECRS version of Wink anticipates and staunchly rules out the track this game has taken in Quaker hands. It is not to “degenerate into a wrestling match.” The sexual element is tacitly accepted, along with other adolescent tensions that make it so much fun for youngsters, but in ECRS the game is played by all ages and without respect to gender.
Maybe I’m completely wrong about how this game developed. Certainly it has a sort of archetypal quality, and perhaps it was independently developed and played by other groups. Some of the New Games material (mentioned in the Wikipedia entry) was brought to that organization by people who’d been involved in ECRS. It would be interesting to find out more.
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September 10th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
I remember hearing the nineteenth-century parlor game creation myth when I was involved with Philadelphia’s Friends Institute back in the mid-1990s. I accepted it then but your 1970s “New Games” explanation makes perfect sense. The 1970s seemed to be a fertile time for creating and disseminating new Quaker tools and practices but this wouldn’t be the first example of one of them being backdated to the nineteenth century in our peculiar Quaker amnesia (I’m thinking of “clearness committees” in particular).
I wish there were more cultural histories of Friends. I’d love to know when certain practices originated and how continued practices from today are similar and different to their namesakes of a hundred years ago. I’m curious not to turn back the tide so much as to acknowledge how much we moderns are the co-creators of this tradition. In particular, I’d love to see how committees worked and what worship looked like at various times in Quaker history.
For what it’s worth, Wink is essential in any liberal Quaker youth gathering.
Martin @ Quaker Ranter
September 10th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
According to Cookie Caldwell, writing in a PYM page about this game, the milder version was described in a 1909 book. Someone may have seen that and projected it further back into the 1800s, and assumed (because it’s played today mainly by Quakers?) that Quakers were playing it then, too. Unlikely, I think.
Although it was ‘around’ for most of the century, Friends may not have adopted it and then adapted it as “Winkum” until the 1970s or ’80s. There have been a number of Friends who were part of ECRS, including in the Philadelphia area, so the game may not have started in Quaker circles at Powell House.
September 10th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Reminds me a little of Monopoly, which started as a Henry George-inspired anti-capalist game that eventually fell into Quaker school circles and made its way to the Atlantic City Friends School. The custom of the folk game was to rename the streets to local ones and it was a traveling salesman who fell in among AC Friends who tucked a copy under his arm and sold it to Parker Bros as an original game.
September 10th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
In poking around a bit, I’ve found a few more references. This one is pretty succinct and to the point that I find most interesting:
September 11th, 2007 at 9:02 am
I played winkum as a teen in my Midwest Baptist youth group back in the late ‘70 and early ’80s. It seemed to me that the game was invented just for the purpose of flirting! I was tickled to learn that my son now plays it on his Southern Appalachia Yearly Meeting Young Friends (SAYF) youth retreats.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Which version did you play back in the ’70s, Mary? I’m realizing now that the mild version was fairly widespread (Midwest Baptists) and had been around for quite awhile. It was part of the repertoire of a lot of people who led recreation for youth groups.
I’m still working on the hypothesis that the milder version was introduced by Friends who were also part of ECRS, and that the wilder version developed at Powell House and in NYYM (or perhaps in Philadelphia YM or New England). ECRS has overlapped with those three yearly meetings, with at least 30-40 people involved in both during the past half century.
It’s the sort of game, even in its milder version, that definitely plays on flirting and courting instincts. The aggressiveness and physicality also appeals to younger kids, and they see the older adolescents playing it and pick up on that energy, too.
The wilder version seems like the sort of thing that can happen when the kids take over the game and play it the way they want. I find all the variants and systems of rules really fascinating, because the kids are being responsible at a certain level, and no-one wants to get really hurt. Also, there’s a tension between what the kids are doing and what the grown-ups are thinking about it. It certainly tests the Quaker Peace Testimony (”test” in a good way, I mean) and who but the Quakers would give their children the latitude to try playing it that way, and to develop a framework of rules and understandings to contain its excesses?
One question would be, how far has the wilder version spread? What constraints do adults try to impose, and how well does religious liberalism factor against their success?
September 11th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Kirk,
Are you kidding? We were BAPTISTS! Rules rule! Adults reign! Mild was as wild as we were allowed to be.
September 12th, 2007 at 8:12 am
Actually, I think the “mild” version sounds pretty racy for 1909.
I only recently learned about Wink, from my son who attended the FGC Gathering. Apparently, there have been problems with the “wild version” that have alarmed even liberal Quakers! Whether these were issues of sexuality or roughness or both, I don’t know. But, as I understand it, at FGC Gathering, the youth are now only allowed to play wink at specific times and places with an adult supervisor present.
September 13th, 2007 at 4:33 am
There has long been a rumour that Friends House banned Ratchet Screwdriver from youth events within Britain Yearly Meeting - my understanding is that it isn’t banned (’we don’t have such authority!’ quoted one CYPC worker) but it is discouraged from being part of the programme - should the young people chose to play it during free time then all should be done to ensure it is in as a safe an environment as possible. Ratchet screwdriver, as with it’s Aussie and Kiwi counterpart ‘the kissing game’ is most definitely not in the ‘mild’ camp!
The reasoning behind these guidelines is twofold, firstly health and safety/insurance - too many dislocated collar bones, broken fingers etc. The second some see as pc gone mad, others realise it’s something they simply hadn’t considered before… it is a game where there is a lot of indiscriminate physical contact - for some people with various mobility issues/bad backs etc it’s a game they can’t safely play, it is thus by its nature discriminatory as it isn’t suitable for all - and thus it being part of programmed activities is against our testimony to equality etc. But also there are those far less obvious for whom such random intimate physical contact can be scary, those for whom abuse has been part of their past or possibly present life. We don’t always know about such people in our midst, for some it might help break down some negative associations but for others it may be just too intimidating, being expected to play could be upsetting.
Sometimes just having discussions around these issues is enough to raise awareness and limit any amount of peer pressure to participate, but certainly within Kiwi YFs where the kissing game is alive and kicking (usually literally) it is seen as perfectly acceptable and reasonable to sit out - after all someone has to take the photos, not least of the bruises!
August 4th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
I’m not sure what the “mild” version could look like. Anyone care to explain? (violent) Wink has spread to my school, where it’s played in secret. The UUs and the Quakers are always arguing over who invented it.
September 5th, 2009 at 5:35 am
Here’s the ECRS description of Wink, from the “Games” webpage, Chapter III as originally compiled in the book, Of Play and Playfulness:
Formation:
Half the players sit in chairs in a circle, with one extra chair vacant; a player stands behind every chair.
Object:
For the standing players: to keep one’s chair occupied. For the seated players: to change seats when invited.
Action:
The standing player with the vacant seat winks or nods at any seated player, who immediately tries to escape and occupy the vacant chair. If the player succeeds, there is a new vacant chair, and the person behind it winks at someone else.
The standing player tries to restrain* the escapee by placing hands on the shoulders of the person in his or her chair. Standing players must keep their hands at their sides until their person has been winked at.
* “Restraint” has to be defined and demonstrated by the leader. A gentle tap is not sufficient: however, a choking armhold should not be permitted. The restraint should be firm enough to hold the person there, yet not degenerate into a wrestling match.