Wer hat Angst vorm Schwarzen Mann?

The children's game "Who's Afraid of the Black Man" is known at least in Germany, Finland and Slovenia. Depending on the region and time, it was understood to mean different beings: a dark shadowy figure or a man with black clothing.

The game starts with one "Black Man" standing on one side of the playground, and the other players stand on the other side. The Black man asks: "Who’s afraid of the Black man?", replied with "Nobody!", "And what if he comes?", "Then we’ll run away!". Then all runs to the other side of the playground, and the Black man runs to the opposite direction, and while he runs, he tries to catch others. Whoever is caught becomes his assistant and helps him to catch others on the next round.

All the players, including the Black man, can run only towards the other side of the playground. They’re not allowed to return to the start line. If they do, they have to join the Black man and become his assistants. The person, who is caught last, becomes the Black man in the next game.

Name of the game has nothing to do with ethnic background or skin color. Franz Magnus Böhme (1897) claimed the term can be traced back to the "Black Death" (the plague around 1348). This would also explain the playing principle logically: Everyone who is attacked by the plague (touched in the game) becomes the bearer of the "Black Death" and belongs to the army of the "Black Man" who spreads the plague. But to avoid racist connotations, today the game is sometimes called differently, e.g. "Who is afraid of the evil/wild/dumb/ice man/creature/being?" (e.g. bogeyman; Big Bad Wolf).

Based on German Wer hat Angst vorm Schwarzen Mann? and Finnish Kuka pelkää mustaa miestä Wikipedia articles, and ABCWellBeing Who's Afraid of the Black Man? school project blog post.

Franz Magnus Böhme (1897), Deutsches Kinderlied und Kinderspiel, available at Internet Archive: archive.org/details/DeutschesKinderliedUndKinderspiel

goandgo, Diane Putnam, Au Cœur... diagonalhorizon, Martine and 15 other people have particularly liked this photo

Comments

▲ Previous comments ▲

M♥rJ Photogr♥phy !!… ^club

It's a wonder that this game is still available, with all this PC rubbish !!!....Great contribution all the same Sami !!!

5 years ago.

Annaig56 ^club

5 years ago.

Ulrich John ^club

!!!

5 years ago.

Taormina ^club

Das spielt sich alles nur in unseren Köpfen ab.

Schönes Thema...

5 years ago.

Stevia ^club

With the term "the black man", I never thought of ethnic background or skin color in childhood! For me, the "black man" was always connected to our basement, where under the staircase in a very dark eerie corner a large pile of black coals were stored. When we were naughty as children, sometimes our parents said to scare us, "If you are not good, the black man will come out of the dark basement and get you!" For me as a child, this dark corner with the coal pile was always associated with the term "the black man" and the cellar was an eerie place, from which I always wanted to get out very quickly and feared the corner with the coals. :)

For your traffic sign with the worker I had to think of a work of art by Guido Nussbaum. He had the idea to give this sign another statement, eg. B. "Rest"! ;-) See page 11 of this brochure.

5 years ago. Edited 5 years ago.

▼ Next comments ▼

Sign-in to write a comment.

		Page color
		Comments Panel
		Screen Margins
▼▲
		Widescreen

← Among Sami Serola (inactive)'s photos

See also...

Year of the Dog Year of the Dog

Bilderdomino - Photo Domino Bilderdomino - Photo Domino

WAYS of seeing / MANIERES DE VOIR WAYS of seeing / MANIERES DE VOIR

Authorizations, license

Wer hat Angst vorm Schwarzen Mann?

Ξ	Frame Options
3 - +