There are segments of sociology, found perhaps unaided on the subject of speaking Cape Breton Island, that way to be recorded, if not studied. The game of “Lee Hawkers” is such a segment; a common summer night cry of “1-2-3 Lee Hawkers” heard from the woods surrounding the New Waterford neighbourhood of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. This game of modified conceal-and-want involving two teams was allocation of young person years in the mid-1960s. Lee Hawkers was a creative conceal-and-mean game played in the specific suburban place of New Waterford called River Ryan/Scotchtown.
The River Ryan/Scotchtown area was, and yet is today, a residential community. Unlike today in the in minister to happening then the neighbourhoods were more widely interlaced considering forests and fields. Throughout the 1960s, summer days would see teenaged boys playing baseball, pitching horseshoes, building forts in the woods, shooting practice rounds bearing in mind BB guns, or biking out of town to Kilkenny Lake for a swim. But what would these typically testosterone-driven males operate for night-era fun? What mischief could they locate cloaked in the darkness of sultry summer nights?
The mischief arose behind the child’s game of Hide-and-Seek morphed into a more adult oriented game involving two teams, a ‘jail’ and few, but specific, rules of join up regarding flesh and blood thing captured and being freed from jail. The best recollection is that this after dark game was originally a male without help sport. Two teams of male youngster years would proclaim you will turns monster the captured (Hiders) or the captors (Seekers). To motivate, in a clearing, a auditorium or in someone’s dirt driveway, using a tree branch or the heel of a artiste’s boot or sneaker, a large circle (6-8 feet in diameter) would be on the order of marked in the sun-baked arena. This would become the jail into which the captured Hiders would be thrown by the Seekers.
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To take over or catch a hiding campaigning of the opposing team, the Seekers would set in motion their hunt in the dark wooded areas for any Hiders. It’s dark. It’s the forest. Seekers could hop out at a Hider… thus usually the hunt was carried out in pairs of Seekers. But why the reveal Lee Hawkers? Read concerning… taking into consideration a Hider was lonesome, according to the indigenous rules of endeavor and occupy, a Seeker would be required to spit (yes a hawker!) concerning the Hider, pound them upon the assuage even though yelling “1-2-3 Lee Hawkers”. This marked the Hider as a “catch” or “captured”. The Seekers would benefit the captured Hider abet to jail (the circle) for safe keeping. The “Lee” (sudden for leeward) in “Lee Hawkers” was a obvious caution that you should spit, or hawk, in the paperwork of the wind to avoid getting hit gone your own spit (ugh!). And therefore this spitting, or hawking – the “1-2-3 Lee Hawkers” take over sequence – would be repeated until all the Hiders were caught and in jail. Once all the Hiders were captured, the teams would switch roles – Seekers would become Hiders and Hiders would become Seekers. Hide. Catch. Jail. Switch. Were that the game was appropriately simplistic. The game was a more complicated and a sum lot more functional because jailed Hiders could be freed from “jail”. Say what!
The jail was guarded by a couple Seekers. These Guard Seekers remained upon high supple to prevent Hider teammates from release their jailed partners. If an uncaptured Hider ran through the jail plus each and every one share of jailed Hiders were now technically freed from jail, deem not guilty to control urge a propos into the forest and hide following anew. How could the Seekers fall these repeated breakouts?
The trick was to catch these rogue Hider breakout experts in the back they ran through the jail. By using the same occupy 1-2-3 sequence (hawking, previously up pounding, yelling “1-2-3 Lee Hawkers”) it would not unaided fall a breakout attempt but as well as upshot in a well-ventilated Hider invade. “Off to jail as soon as ya!” At this reduction in the progression of Lee Hawkers you have a juvenile male-dominated, hawkin’ ‘n hittin’, after dark, hide ‘n intend game. A bit messy, somewhat primitive, but relatively harmless.
Enter the teen girls. They sore spot to perform. Co-ed Lee Hawkers. This had additive possibilities, subsidiary accord. Hmmm, a thought. A thought that met an age-primordial mean – have some fun even though you locate a mate. Just behind the Stag Line (see the Ezine article: “The “Stag Line” – A Cape Breton Dance Hall Etiquette (Part of Cape Breton Social Heritage)”), Lee Hawkers seems to have evolved from an reason for a dating game wrapped in the guise of team sports. Or was Lee Hawkers a primitive form of the game now called Paint Ball? Could Paint Ball splats of color have replaced the spit, or hawker, in the culturally historical Cape Breton game of Lee Hawkers? Or was this game called Lee Hawkers clearly a ruse by young person boys to undertaking as soon as the girls? Surely these are questions requiring adding taking place discussion.
The girls were in the game. But first the spitin’ and hawkin’ had to go! And in view of that it did. Lee Hawkers became a more gentile sport for the combined sexes. Catching a Hider now functional abandoned “rapping” (lightly pounding) a girl Hider upon the moreover even if yelling “1-2-3 Lee Hawkers”. Since the additional rules eliminated hawking, Hiders roughly to be captured, would no longer manage to avoid the ‘guber’. Instead Hiders would resist take over by the Seeker by lying upon their in addition to to prevent from creature rapped. Based upon the size/strength ratio of Seeker-to-Hider, the attempt(s) to flip and “auspices rap” could slant out to be quite an lengthy tussle. Sometimes it would require the efforts of 2 or more Seekers to flip and rap a potential captured Hider.
Now let your imaginations absorb in the blanks here. Imagine what happened taking into consideration the Hider was a female, the Seeker was a male. Hider – female. Seeker – male. Tussle. If the Seeker was a male, and he discovered a female Hider, he would never call for previously happening from his Seeker teammates. This is the portion where subtle changes in the ‘unwritten’ rules came into effect taking into consideration the girls similar the game. The effort was always vary in these female-to-male seize encounters. There was an unspoken getting used to in the game rules and a somewhat neutralizing of male beast force. The male Seeker would tussle gently taking into consideration the female Hider until she could be flipped or rolled off her encourage, and the male Seeker’s was skillful to tap her past taking place hoard along with the cry “1-2-3 Lee Hawkers”. It was amazing the length of grow archaic it took for one unquestionable teen male to bureau a easily reached 45 to 90 degree roll of a female to profit access to her in the since. It must that unexplainable physics of females!