Drawing Storiesfrom Around the World

and a Samplingof European

Handkerchief Stories

Anne Pellowski

LIBRARIES UNLIMITED

Drawing Sto ries from Around the Worldand a Sam pling of Eu ropean Hand kerchief Sto ries

Draw ing Sto ries from Around the World

and a Sam pling of European Hand kerchief Sto ries

Anne Pellowski

Westport, Connecticut � Lon don

Brit ish Li brary Cat a logu ing in Pub li ca tion Data is avail able.

Copyright © 2005 by Li braries Un limited

All rights re served. No por tion of this book may be reproduced, by any pro cess or tech nique, with out theexpress written con sent of the pub lisher.

ISBN: 1-59158-222-9

First pub lished in 2005

Libraries Un limited, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881A Mem ber of the Green wood Pub lishing Group, Inc.www.lu.com

Printed in the United States of Amer ica

The pa per used in this book com plies with the Permanent Pa per Stan dard is sued by the Na tionalIn for ma tion Stan dards Or ga ni za tion (Z39.48–1984).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Con tents

Ac knowl edg ments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viiAb bre vi a tions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Drawing Stories from Around the World. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1In tro duc tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1A Note on Draw ing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7For Those Who Feel They Can not Draw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

The Black Cat—Nineteenth-Century American . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9The Wolves, the Goats and the Kids—Nineteenth-Century

Amer i can, Eu ro pean, Mon go lian. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19The Smart Shop per—Ro ma nian, Greek, Arme nian . . . . . . . . . . 25The Smart Shopper—Swiss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31What Do You Think You Are?—German, Swiss . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37The Key—Dan ish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Per’s Trou sers—Swed ish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49Light Bulb—Swedish, American . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57How to Get Rid of Mosquitos—Paraguayan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Lit tle Cir cle, Big Cir cle—In do ne sian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69Good Night!—Ma lay sian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75Right An swer, Wrong An swer—Ma lay sian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81Right An swer, Wrong An swer (Sec ond Ver sion)—Ma lay sian . . . . 84The Doh Bird—Ben gali . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87How Man and Woman Found Their Place in the

World—Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91The Ab sent-Minded Judge—Korean. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95EKAKI UTA—Jap a nese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

The Care free Girls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99Is It Grand father? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103Shall I Draw Your Portrait? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107To Help You Feel Better . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111The Oc to pus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115The One That Got Away . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119The Duck. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125What Hap pened af ter the Rain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129Panda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

v

The Cheer leader. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139Ci cada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145Watch Out! You’ll Turn into a Frog!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149Cat er pil lar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153Santa Claus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157The Badger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

SAND STORIES—Aus tra lian Ab orig ine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167The Rain bow Snake—Aus tra lian Ab orig ine . . . . . . . . . . . 169Little Boy and Emu—Nunggubuyu (Aus tra lian Ab orig ine)185

The Lit tle Girl and Her Grand mother—Napaskiak,Yuk (Es kimo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

What Can Happen If You Fall into a Hole—South Af rica . . . . . 203

Hand ker chief Sto ries from Eu ro pean Traditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207In tro duc tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

The Puz zled Pro fes sors—Dutch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211Rab bit Story—Eu ro pean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213The Jump ing Mouse—Eu ro pean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219The Baby Sur prise—Eu ro pean. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227The Peas ant’s Clever Daugh ter—Eu ro pean. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Sources of the Draw ing Sto ries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243The Black Cat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243The Wolves, the Goats and the Kids. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243The Smart Shop per . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243The Smart Shop per—Swiss and Ger man Ver sions . . . . . 244What Do You Think You Are?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244The Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244Per’s Trou sers; Light Bulb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244How to Get Rid of Mosquitos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245Little Circle, Big Cir cle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245Good Night!; Right Answer, Wrong An swer . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246The Doh Bird. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246How Man and Woman Found Their Place in the World . . . 246The Ab sent-Minded Judge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247Ekaki Uta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247The Rainbow Snake. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247Little Boy and Emu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248The Lit tle Girl and Her Grand mother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248What Can Happen If You Fall into a Hole. . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

Sources of the Handkerchief Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249Bib li og ra phy for Draw ing Sto ries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251Bib li og ra phy for Hand ker chief Sto ries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255In dex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

vi Con tents

Ac knowl edg ments

My warm est thanks to Shigeo Watanable, Sachiko SaionjiWatanabe, Kiyoko Matsuoka, Tadashi Matsui, and the late KazueIshitake, all of Ja pan. They have been su premely helpful in di rectingme to many of my drawing sto ries and giving me good clues so that Icould trans late the sto ries into Eng lish with out distorting them toomuch. All er rors of interpretation are mine.

Grateful thanks are also due to Devon Harle and RobinYoungerman, ref er ence li brar i ans at the Winona Pub lic Li brary (Min-nesota), for their help in getting items for me on interlibrary loans. Ihad first read many of these items at the New York Pub lic Li brary.They were rare and of ten hard to lo cate, but I needed to check themagain firsthand, for the bibliography. What other author has had thedelightful mo ment of hearing on the an swering ma chine, “We have“Hanky Panky” for you at the library”?

I also wish to thank the following, whom I list in alphabetical or-der, by coun try:

Mrs. Shpresa Vreto of Albania; the late Jack Da vis and the lateEna Noel and all my IBBY friends in Australia; Angela Evdoxiadis and Ruth Brown of Toronto, Can ada; Knud-Eigil Hauberg-Tychssen ofDen mark; Genevieve Patte of France; the Baumann Family, BarbaraScharioth, Klaus Doderer, and the late Hans Halbey, all of Ger many;Bandana Sen of New Delhi, In dia; Murti Bunanta, Toety Maklis, andIka Sri Mustika of In do ne sia; Nouchine Ansari and all my friends atthe Chil dren’s Book Council of Iran; the staff at the Folklore Section,Se oul Uni ver sity, Ko rea; Julinda Abu-Nasr of Lebanon; AhmedGhulam Jamaludin, Asmiah Abd. Ghani, Hasniah bt. Husin, ShamsulKhamariah and all my friends at the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka,Kuala Lumpur, Ma laysia; Joke Thiel-Schoonebeck, Ce cile Beijk vanDaal, and Rian van de Sande of the Neth erlands; Irene Kulman of Par -aguay; Sra. Lilly de Cueto of Peru; Kiran Shah, Sheila Wee and mem -bers of the Sto rytelling Group, and mem bers of the BookDe vel op ment Coun cil, Sin ga pore; Eva Eriksson, Ulla Lundberg, and

vii

Per Gustavsson of Swe den; Susanne Stocklin-Meier and the late Elisa-beth Waldmann of Swit zerland; Somboon Singkamanen of Thailand;Vir ginia Betancourt, Carmen Diana Dearden, and many other friendsin Ven ezuela who looked in vain for drawing stories.

In the United States: Ginny Moore Kruse, Kathleen Horning, andNancy Gloe of Madison, Wisconsin; Cara Olson Kolb and Sam Kolb ofMinnesota and California (for their help while with the Peace Corps in Par a guay); Mar i lyn Iarusso of New York; Nancy D. Munn of Chi cago,Il li nois; Vic tor Mair, Uni ver sity of Penn syl va nia; and Mar ga ret ReadMacDonald of Seattle, Washington.

viii Ac knowl edg ments

Ab bre vi a tions

IBBY—The In ternational Board on Books for Young People.This is the or ganization through which I have mademany of my best con tacts in the field of sto rytelling. Ithas na tional sec tions in more than sixty countries andhas its secretariat in Basel, Switzerland.

USBBY—The U.S. Board on Books for Young Peo ple, the of -fi cial na tional sec tion of IBBY.

ix

Draw ing Sto ries fromAround the World

In tro duc tion

In us ing the term “draw ing sto ries,” I am re ferring to those storiesin which the teller (or an assistant) actually draws a figure or figureswhile nar rating the story. I do not re fer to sto ries in which the fig uresor pictures are drawn in ad vance, and the teller then points to themwhile narrating.

We do not know when draw ing sto ries began. There is some ev i-dence that parts of early cave draw ings match com monly knownmyths and legends in a given area (for ex ample, Australia and south -ern Af rica), but we can only spec ulate whether the draw ings weremade dur ing the tell ing of a tale, or be fore or af ter. Most of thesketches in drawing sto ries from the last 150 years are quite ephem -eral, be ing erased or thrown away shortly after the telling oc curs. Thismakes them very difficult to research.

I first became in terested in draw ing sto ries (and indeed, any un -usual forms of storytelling) as a li brarian and storyteller at the NewYork Public Li brary in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This in terest wasstimulated by Chap ter 38 in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book On the Banksof Plum Creek and by the appearance of such books as Carl With ers’sThe Tale of a Black Cat. I also saw how the draw ing-story books andfilms of Crockett John son (Harold and the Purple Crayon and oth ers)had taken hold of the young child’s imag ination in that same pe riod—and for that matter still do.

During my first ex tended visit to Ja pan, in 1972, I came upon anumber of children drawing and chanting ekaki uta. Thanks to myguide, Sachiko Saionji (now Watanabe), I was in troduced to this fas ci-nating aspect of Japanese chil dren’s cul ture. It is dif ficult to remembernow, but she, the late Mitsue Ishitake (founder of the Ohanashi Car a-van), or the writer Shigeo Watanabe, sent me the first book in which I

1

saw this custom doc umented: Satoshi Kako’s Nihon Densho No AsobiTokumon (Jap a nese Tra di tional Games). Later, Tadashi Matsui, ofFukuinkan Pub lish ers, and Kiyoko Matsuoka, ac tive in the Asian Cul-tural Center for UNESCO, called my attention to var ious pub licationsand re cord ings where ekaki uta were to be found. I owe a debt to all ofthem, be cause ekaki uta, and my first at tempts at us ing them in Eng -lish, piqued my in terest enough to search for drawing stories in otherparts of the world.

The draw ing sto ry tell ing prac ticed by the Aus tra lian Ab orig i nesis surely among the older forms, since it is mentioned by early vis itorsto the con tinent. Also, the pictures found in caves re veal that the mo -tifs and se quences de picted show a re markable similarity to the draw-ings used in sto ries told in the past century. Sadly, most folklorists andanthropologists seem to re gard this activity as merely a game prac -ticed by children, and only a few of them have given it the se rious andcareful study it deserves.

The mo tifs and de signs used in such sand storytelling are alsoused by many se rious artists, some times us ing ac tual sand on bark orother types of pa per. They can also be found in drawings and paint-ings using other art me dia, such as pen and ink, wa tercolor, tempera,oil, and the like. The designs have also been used in film. But in vir tu-ally all of these cases, little or no men tion is made of the use instorytelling.

More scholars have studied the “storyknifing” com mon amongthe Napaskiak, Yup’ik, and other groups in Alaska and the area onboth sides of the Be ring Strait. Storyknifing is generally practicedmostly by chil dren and women. One of the first toys given to chil drenin the past was a beautifully carved bone knife (not sharp) used ex clu-sively for this ac tivity. These storyknives are now col lectors’ items andcarry a hefty price. Now adays, or dinary ta ble knives of metal orplastic are used.

As soon as the chil dren are old enough to ver balize simple narra-tives, they draw se quential figures in snow, sand, or mud while tellinga tale that matches the pic tures. This is the process called storyknifing.According to all the scholars who have studied this ac tivity, the typi-cal commencement for such a session is for one child to suggest to an-other, “Let’s go storyknifing,” and they troop out to a space wherethere is a fresh layer of snow or a nice smooth area of mud or sand. The stories are of the type commonly known as “personal experience” nar-ratives, or they are mod eled on tra ditional folk tales known among thechildren. The tell ers often change the details to match their specific life situations. Boys generally drop the ac tivity as soon as they rec ognizethat it is not done by adult men, although there are exceptions.

2 Drawing Sto ries from Around the World

The Yukaghir are a rein deer-herding peo ple who live in the Yakutarea that bor ders the Arc tic Ocean. One of the customs girls carried outduring communal dances was to take pieces of fresh birch bark and startcarving figures in it with the tip of a sharp knife. The onlookers weremade to guess at what the fig ures represented un til all pres ent could ar -rive at a mu tual un derstanding. The con tents in variably re lated to ex -pressions of love. Only women made these “love letters” as they werecalled. For many years, certain scholars considered them an early form ofwriting, but John De Francis, in Vis i ble Speech, quite con vinc ingly ar guesthat they were sim ply mne monic de vices. It is my opinion that this cus-tom is sim ply an other form of “storyknifing” practiced by a people whomust at one time or an other have been in touch with the Napaskiak,Yup’ik, and similar groups on both sides of the Bering Strait.

It is a curious phe nomenon that the art of draw ing se quential pic-tures and tell ing a story is practiced so similarly among such dis parategroups in the South Pa cific and the North Pacific.

The Chi nese are also early draw ing sto rytellers. There seems to be no firm evidence as to when and how Chi nese script was in vented, butthere are many leg ends that try to ex plain its or igin. One that is wellknown goes some thing like this:

A long time ago, there was a clever Chi nese min ister who was walk -ing along one early morn ing, pon dering how he could pass on thewords of the Em peror in such a way that even dis tant sub jects wouldunderstand. As he walked along, he saw in the ground the printsmade by var ious birds and an imals. He re alized he could “read”those prints and tell ex actly which an imal or bird had passed by, andwhere each was go ing. If he could in vent a way of putt ing the Em -peror’s words as se quential marks on some per manent sur face,such as bone or bam boo, he would be able to send these words to all parts of China at the same time. He knew the sym bols that had beenused for cen turies on “or acle bones,” an imal bones that were used topredict fu ture events. He took some of these an cient sym bols andcombined them with other sym bols, each one rep resenting a syl lableor whole word. And out of that came the Chi nese way of writ ing.

This is not the place to argue historical proofs for dates when se -quential writing began. Suf fice it to say, it began very early in Sumeria,in Egypt, and in China, but only in the last-named area does thereseem to have de veloped the custom of telling and draw ing sto riesbased on el ements of writ ten char acters. This may be ex plained be-cause we only have surviving ev idence for the Chi nese use of sto ry-telling to elucidate ideo grams; there might have been sim ilarsto ry tell ing us ing Egyp tian hieroglyphs and Sumerian picture scripts.

In tro duc tion 3

Only a small percentage of Chinese characters in use today aretrue pictographs or ideo graphs. Most of the characters are phonetic.Nevertheless, there are enough pic tures of real persons or objects hid -den in the characters, that it is log ical for a parent or teacher (who hasobserved the power of story) to make up a short nar rative and tell itwhile teach ing the child, thus making the shape and placement ofstrokes in the character more memorable.

That this is still the way some Chi nese families teach their chil -dren char acters they want them to re member was brought out verystrikingly to me on a visit to the Hillcrest School in To ronto manyyears ago. There, I met Jasper and Pippin Hitchcock, twin brotherswho were Chi nese-Canadian. They had been taught an ingenious lit-tle story to help them re member the characters of their name aswritten in Chinese.

When Chi nese writ ing went to Ja pan, where it became known askanji script, this story-drawing custom ob viously went with it. Al-though Japanese uses its own purely syllabic form of script, the ed u-cated person must also learn a certain amount of kanji. This was oftentaught in story form. Masahiro Iwai (1987) points out (p. 82) thatkanji-writing songs are still known by teach ers and by a certain per -centage of adults and children in Ja pan. The same is true in Ko rea, asshown in A Ko rean Night’s En ter tain ment.

It is not surprising, then, that ekaki uta, the pic ture-drawing storychants, should have de veloped and flourished and become so wide -spread among children in Ja pan to day. Most of the scholars who havewritten about the ekaki uta have pointed out that while children in theearlier part of the twen tieth cen tury were ex posed to no more thanforty, now more than one hundred ekaki uta are extant among Japa-nese chil dren. As the main reason for this in crease, Iwai cites the lackof play space for present-day Jap anese chil dren. Performing ekaki utarequires far less space than sing ing games that de mand a lot of bodymovement in larger, more open space. I per sonally at tribute at least apart of their re cent ex tensive de velopment to the new visuality prev a-lent in Jap anese culture (and in many other parts of the world as well).

The use of Western num bers in so many ekaki uta may havestemmed from an en tirely dif ferent source. It is known that draw ing ahuman head us ing only the West ern numbers from zero to nine wascommon in Europe as an en tertainment. This oc curred in many con -figurations. The custom of drawing a face or head us ing Japanesenumbers and sym bols exists from the Edo pe riod, and it was in the lat -ter years of this pe riod that Ja pan opened to the West. It seems logicalto spec ulate that the two “num ber” meth ods of drawing a hu manhead combined and gradually worked their way into the popular

4 Drawing Sto ries from Around the World

forms of en tertainment, among them, ekaki uta. It is my be lief that Jap -anese chil dren in clude the West ern num bers so frequently in theirekaki uta be cause they are required to learn both sys tems of writ ingnumbers from early on, and by us ing them in this manner, they learnthem in a memorable way, having fun.

There are similar drawing stories among the languages of In dia,often re lying on the let ters of one of their al phabets. I know of themonly because of see ing them told by In dians from the various lan-guage ar eas. They are ex ceedingly difficult to trans late and adapt, be -cause they rely on knowledge of al phabets that are used only inspecific ar eas of India. I could find no studies in folk lore or anthropol-ogy re ferring to such sto ries, so I know of no con nection with otherAsian traditions.

The drawing stories found in the In donesian and Malaysian ar -eas, on the other hand, all seem to have come from Jap anese or Chi-nese or Eu ropean tra ditions. In In donesia, there are mini-storiescreated around human head drawings, using Western numbers.These could have been brought in by the Dutch. Ika Sri Mustika of Ja -karta and Nusa Tenggara of East Timor both showed me interestingvariants.

European draw ing sto ries can be traced back less than two hun -dred years, and, in most cases, seem to have been popular mostly from the mid-nine teenth cen tury to the early twen tieth. The re bus has beena pop ular device for a much longer period, but it cannot be called adrawing story by my definition, since it usu ally relies on printedwords al ternating with pictures that the reader is ex pected to de ci-pher. However, the pop ularity of the rebus, es pecially among newlyliterate pop ulations, surely helped to fos ter the ac ceptance and spreadof draw ing stories, once they appeared on the scene.

The same is true of the picture sheets used by mar ket sing ersthroughout Europe. The sheets had pictures hand-drawn or printed,and the tell ers hung them up and told, or sung, the tale de picted. Thecommon term used for these tellers was bankelsanger, or bench singer,because they usually stood on a bench. Two con temporary pictures ofsuch storytellers can be found in my book The World of Sto rytelling (pp.84–85). Most of these were dramatic sto ries, culled from the sen sa-tional news of the day.

An in ter est ing vari ant ap pears in the Kaszubian re gion of Po land,where the picture sheets were used as a means of keep ing alive theKaszubian lan guage during the period when Prussian authoritieswere at tempting to stamp it out. These sheets were called KaszubskieNuty and can be seen in the Kaszubian Mu seum in Kartuzy, Po land. Iknow of no ex amples in Amer ican museums or li braries. But again,

In tro duc tion 5

these do not fall within my definition of drawing storytelling, be causethe draw ings were made ahead of time, and the teller/singer simplyused a long stick to point at each pic ture as he performed (they werealmost exclusively male performers).

The first men tion of a European draw ing story I have been able tolocate in print is a ver sion of the story of ten called “The Wild Bird” buttitled “The Wolves, the Goats and the Kids” in this collection. It can befound in the Frikell book (1872, p. 89) un der the title “Do ing a Goose in the Turn of a Hand.” The story given with the figure is a scant fourlines long, but the gen eral outline is there. The Frikell book was a pop -ular handbook for magicians, both am ateur and professional.

The person most likely responsible for the spread of pop ular, folkdrawing sto ries in Eu rope was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better knownas Lewis Carroll, the au thor of Al ice’s Ad ven tures in Won der land. He isknown to have used them in en tertaining children and adults. Or perhapsit was Hans Christian Andersen. Andersen trav eled widely through outEurope and the British Isles. Both he and Carroll were known for their“trick” en tertainments. It is pos sible that one or both shared a drawingstory, and this was passed on when they visited various homes. This couldaccount for the fact that sim ilar drawing stories were known in England,the Neth erlands, Den mark, and Swe den dur ing the last de cades of thenineteenth cen tury. However, it is just as likely that these were pure inven-tions com ing from the com mon folk and passed quickly from one per sonto an other be cause they were so clever and quirky.

But how to ac count for the ap pearance of these same sto ries in theUnited States during the same era? If Laura Ingalls Wilder was correctin her re membrances, her mother was telling her some of these sto riessome time in the early 1870s. Her mem ory is backed up by at least twoother in formants grow ing up in other parts of the United States at thesame time. (See notes at the head of “The Black Cat” and “The Wolves,the Goats and the Kids.”)

We shall probably never know ex actly where these drawing sto -ries started and how or by whom they were spread. But spread theydid, usually by word of mouth and in dividual drawing, but also inprinted picture and text format.

A few of them, such as the one I call “The Smart Shopper” in thiscollection, seem to be found in all parts of Eu rope. One can of ten tellwhere the variant co mes from sim ply by not ing what items are pur-chased. Oth ers seem to be of more re cent vintage and are found onlyin one area (for ex ample, “Per’s Trousers”).

It is curious that those im migrants from Europe who went toSouth and Cen tral America in the nineteenth cen tury did not seem totake the draw ing story with them. With the help of many friends and

6 Drawing Sto ries from Around the World

colleagues in var ious countries of that region, I have searched fordrawing sto ries, but in vain. Per haps they did take some drawing sto -ries with them, but most did not sur vive be cause the contexts of thestories were so dif ferent from the daily life around them. In the end, Ifound only one tra ditional draw ing story, from Paraguay, given inthis col lection as “How to Get Rid of Mosquitos.”

There have been a num ber of draw ing story books used by teach -ers and li brar i ans for de cades (Mar ga ret Oldfield’s books come tomind). I have observed some of these sto ries used skillfully and suc -cessfully in storytelling programs for young children. I find it cu rious,however, that I have never come across the sto ries from these booksrepeated and passed on by adults or children in what might be called a folk sto ry tell ing sit u a tion. Is there some thing par tic u lar about theones that have survived through live oral and pictorial telling?

One an swer might be that the book sto ries are more ge neric andseem to be set in no spe cific place or time. But most of those passed onorally (albeit sometimes kept alive by be ing recalled through a printedversion) seem to be quite spe cific in their set ting and of ten give an ideaof a very def inite time when the story took place. If they spread fromplace to place to place, as, for example, the cat story that be gins the col-lection, they pick up just enough vari ation to give the story a to tallylocal flavor.

This is the main rea son why I per sonally like to tell these drawingstories, picked up from many sources around the world. The cul turalclues are of ten slight or sub tle, but they are there in almost ev ery story.They can provide a connection to another cul tural group, if onlythrough a few moments of shared de light in the sheer fun of the clevermatching of sketch to story.

A Note on Draw ingIn each story I have used the cor rect drawing stroke opposite the

text, at the point when one should be say ing those words. For exam-ple, in the first story, when one is say ing, “There was once a boynamed Tommy,” one should be drawing the large capital “T.” Whenone is saying “Tommy lived in a house with two rooms,” one shouldbe add ing the two “rooms” onto the T.

It is im portant to prac tice the timing in each of these sto ries. Donot let the draw ing get ahead of the words or vice versa. Be cause of thenature of Chinese characters and the im portance of do ing them inbeautiful cal ligraphy when pos sible, I strongly urge prac tice of the or -der of the strokes and the use of a brush and ink pad. Best of all, find askilled Chinese cal ligrapher to do them for you, if you can.

A Note on Draw ing 7

For Those Who Feel They Can not DrawAlthough these are of ten called chalk board sto ries, instead of

drawing them on a blackboard, use a large pa per flip chart on astandup ea sel. Photocopy the fi nal figure in each story, blowing it upas large as possible. Trace them on to your large pa per on the flipchart, us ing a very faint pencil that is not vis ible to the audience. Makea short written list of the or der of strokes, and cover each pencil strokewith a broad felt-tipped pen, as you are telling that part of the story.Chances are, no one in your au dience will notice that you are trac ingrather than do ing an original drawing.

8 Drawing Sto ries from Around the World

THE BLACK CAT

Nine teenth-Cen tury Amer i can

This is per haps the most widely known drawing story in theworld, due in part to the fact that Lewis Carroll, the au thor of Al ice’sAd ven tures in Won der land, used it as an en tertainment in the nine-teenth cen tury. He was cop ied by many trying to be as clever as hewas. But it is likely that it was a folk story Carroll had adapted. TheJour nal of Amer i can Folk lore re ported two versions in 1897. A rhymedversion, with a different cat fig ure and a completely dif ferent text, was written in 1897 by Jane H. Holzer, a teacher in Connecticut. The il lus-tra tor Paul Zelinsky used that poem to make his pic ture book The Maidand the Mouse and the Odd-Shaped House. The lon gest ver sion is also inpoetry, but in the Friesian language of the Netherlands. Its main char-acters are two aunts, whose names begin with “T” and “D.” The re -sulting draw ing is different from the one given here. It was publishedin a picture book, Fan Tryntsjemuoi en Duotsjemuoi by Jant Visser-Bakker and Anneke Buizer-Visser. A Dutch version of the same bookwas also published.

9

There was once a boy named Tommy.

Here’s a T for Tommy.

Tommy’s best friend was Sally, who lived down the

road on a dairy farm. Here’s an S for Sally.

Tommy lived in a house with two rooms.

In each room there was a win dow.

On the cor ner of each room was a chimney.

10 The Black Cat

The Black Cat 11

In the front of the house was a wee double door.

On both sides of the door step there was grass growing.

[At this point, try to cover the cat’s head with your

non-drawing hand or arm.]

One day, Tommy took an empty pitcher and set off for

Sally’s house.

“Do you have some cream?” Tommy asked Sally.

“Yes,” said Sally. “We keep it in the cel lar.”

They went down into the cellar,

12 The Black Cat

The Black Cat 13

poured some cream into the pitcher and started to climb

the stairs.

Tommy spilled some of the cream on the steps. He and

Sally slipped on it and tumbled back down the steps.

“Let me carry it,” said Sally. She took the pitcher. They

climbed up the steps and walked along the short path to

Tommy’s house.

14 The Black Cat

The Black Cat 15

Suddenly, Sally spilled some cream from the pitcher.

Tommy and Sally went slid ing down and then they

climbed up.

They slid down again and climbed up once more and fi -

nally made it back to Tommy’s house.

But too bad! There was the black cat waiting and no

cream was left in the pitcher. [Lift your hand or arm

away from the drawing.]

16 The Black Cat

The Black Cat 17

THE WOLVES, THE GOATS AND THE KIDS

Mon go lian

Versions of the picture in this story have been found in Eu rope, inthe United States, in Africa, and in Asia. As men tioned in the In tro-duction to this sec tion, it seems to be the first Eu ropean folk drawingstory that ap peared in print. A version that Laura Ingalls Wilderlearned from her mother is fea tured in “The Day of Games,” Chap ter38 of On the Banks of Plum Creek. Isak Dinesen, in her book Out of Af rica,cites an other ver sion that she told fre quently while liv ing in Af rica. Itis likely she learned it dur ing her childhood in Denmark. I came uponthat ver sion while do ing storytelling workshops with a group of li -brarians and children’s book writers in Kenya in 1987. In each case thestory that goes with the drawing is dif ferent. Here it is set in Mongolia,where ru ral people still live in round yurts, tents made of thick felt.

If possible, use an erasable chalk or pencil when telling this. Donot worry about mak ing the era sures complete. The marks left be hindwill later suggest feath ers. If you are us ing a per manent marker, disre-gard the remarks about erasing.

19

Once upon a time, in the coun try of Mon golia, there was

an old man and an old woman. Like many people in

Mongolia, they lived in a round tent, called a yurt.

In the middle of the tent was a hole to let out the smoke

from their fire.

Near their tent was a fenced-in pen where they kept

their five black goats and three black kids—the baby

goats.

Not far from the pen were two bushes. Hid den be hind

these bushes, two wolves had their den. If you walked

by, you could see only their eyes, shin ing in the dark

shade of the bushes.

One morn ing, the old man went down to the pen to get

the three little black kids. He brought them back to the

tent (erase the three small black dots) and teth ered them

on ropes at the back of the tent, so they could eat the

fresh, new grass that was grow ing there.

20 The Wolves, the Goats and the Kids

The Wolves, the Goats and the Kids 21

The old man then went outside to have a good look

around. When he saw no sign of dan ger, he went back

in the tent to have a glass of tea.

The mo ment the wolves saw the old man go inside, they

ran up to the pen and jumped to the top of the fence.

The five black goats were so frightened at seeing the

wolves on the fence, they all jumped over the back gate.

[Erase five large dots.] Each goat went in a dif ferent di -

rection. They were all bleat ing and crying.

The old woman heard the commotion. She came out of

the tent and ran to the pen. “Oh, where are our goats?”

she cried. “I don’t see any of them. All I see is a strange

bird.”

22 The Wolves, the Goats and the Kids

The Wolves, the Goats and the Kids 23

For pur poses of introducing other countries, you can do versionsof this story as it might be told in ru ral parts of other countries fromaround the world. For example, in Masai areas of Kenya, it would becalves penned in, the tents might be long to tourists on sa fari, and soon.

24 The Wolves, the Goats and the Kids

THE SMART SHOPPER

Ro ma nian, Greek, Ar me nian

This drawing story has many variations and can be found in allparts of Europe. In most of the ver sions I have seen, the figure is awoman, and the items she buys are things to eat, and uten sils withwhich to eat. Dan ish and Swedish versions, as indicated in PerGustavsson’s won der ful book Ritsagor, usu ally draw a child as theshopper. In some places, as in the Swiss ver sion that follows, the fig-ure is drawn right side up, and the shopper pays sixty-six cents for ev-erything. In tell ing ei ther version, it would be ap propriate to put in the name of a lo cal mar ket or convenience store, but be sure to keep the lo -cale of the story in Europe. For ex ample, af ter “set off for the lo cal mar -ket,” you could say: “It was a little like ____________ in ourneighborhood.” I recently told this story in Ja karta, In donesia, andadapted it to fit things bought for a birthday party for one of the chil-dren in the day-care cen ter where we were having a demonstrationstory hour.

25

One day, a Greek woman went out to shop for food for

herself and her hus band. She took her shop ping bag and

set off for the lo cal market.

First, she bought a big pump kin.

Then she bought a smaller melon.

She bought a car rot.

26 The Smart Shop per

The Smart Shop per 27

Then she bought four po tatoes.

She carefully selected some pea pods and some parsley.

“We need something to eat this with,” she said. So she

bought two forks.

When she got home she said to her hus band, “Aren’t I a

smart shopper! I got all this for ninety-nine cents!”

[Turn figure right side up.]

28 The Smart Shop per

The Smart Shop per 29

Little children of ten like to find and name the dif ferent ob jectsthat make up the fig ure. You might wish to ask ques tions such as,What are her eyes made of? Her ears? But don’t be labor the process. Afun ex ercise for al most any age is to have the au dience make up theirown ver sion of the story, cit ing things they would buy. A good art ex -ercise to fol low this type of drawing story is to show re productions ofsome of the paint ings of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Ital ian art ist wholived from 1527 to 1593. He used fruits, veg etables, and flowers tomake in genious portraits. The group can make up their portrait us ingfruits, veg etables, or flow ers. Also, you might wish to use On Mar ketStreet by Arnold and Anita Lobel (New York: Greenwillow, 1981) inconjunction with these sto ries.

30 The Smart Shop per

THE SMART SHOPPER

Swiss Version

In tell ing this, I like to introduce the German words for Mr. andMrs.—Herr and Frau. In the blank space where the name of the buyershould go, I usu ally put the name of a teacher or other person of au -thority in the au dience, especially if it is German-sounding. Lit tle chil-dren love to hear the names of their teachers in sto ries, almost as much as they en joy hearing their own names.

31

One day, Frau _______ went to the local store to buy

some things. “Guten Tag, Good Day, Herr ________,”

she said to the owner. “I would like to have two eggs, a

sausage, and one of those gin gerbread hearts.”

The grocer put all the things in a bag and tied it up

nicely.

“Oh. I al most for got. I need two breakfast rolls, and a

sack of your best flour.”

Just as she was go ing out the door, Frau _________ re -

membered she needed some mush rooms.

32 The Smart Shop per

The Smart Shop per 33

“And you might as well give me two of those forks you

have on sale,” said Frau _______.

“That’s it, then, how much does it come to?”

“All together, it co mes to sixty-six cents, Frau _______.

Dankeschon. Thank you. Come again.”

Now was n’t she a smart shop per!

34 The Smart Shop per

The Smart Shop per 35

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

Ger man, Swiss

Here is a drawing story that usu ally requires two par ticipants. Itis most of ten ini tiated by an older child (the teller) trying to trick ayounger child (the drawer). Usu ally, this youn ger child has justlearned to write the al phabet. It is typ ical of the kind of story youngchildren like to try on their even youn ger peers, to see if they will catch on before admitting to something silly or stu pid. A commonly knownone has the teller ask ing the lis tener to re peat “Just like me” af ter ev erysentence of the story.

When do ing this for an au dience of young children, it would beappropriate to tell it as I give it here, rather than at tempting to ask onechild to be the guinea pig (pun in tended!). When telling to kin dergar-ten or first grade, it is fun to have the chil dren, each with a small pieceof pa per and pencil, draw along with you. They are simply so in -volved in get ting the let ters right, they do not see the end com ing. Ionce told this to an au dience of three hundred first-graders in a schoolin Singapore, each of whom was drawing along with me, and they ex-ploded with laugh ter at the end. They giggled and laughed at the va ri-ety of pigs they had made: some fat, some skinny, some look ing morelike dogs, some looking like no animal at all! It is a per fect way to end a program, and give the children a story to take home and try out onparents or siblings.

37

There was once a brother and sis ter who lived on a farm

in Ger many. One day Gretchen asked her lit tle brother,

Hans, “Can you print all the letters of the alphabet now?”

“Oh, yes, I know them all,” said Hans.

“Then print your name here,” said Gretchen. Hans

printed his name in large cap ital let ters.

“Do you know how to make an M, for mother?” she

asked.

“Of course,” said Hans.

“Then put an M over the H, right there”

“How about W? Can you print that?”

“Sure,” said Hans. “Where do you want it?”

“Make two of them, one un der the H and one un der the

S.” Hans printed the two W’s.

38 What Do You Think You Are?

What Do You Think You Are? 39

“Now put a cap ital C, right here in front of the H, but

not too close.” Hans printed the C.

“I think that S is lonely,” said his sis ter. “It needs a small

s. Put one just at the top and to the side.”

Hans made a smaller s near the big S.

“Can you make small let ters as well?” asked Gretchen.

“If you can, make a small o right here be tween the C

and the H?”

Hans made a small o.

“Now, connect all the capital let ters with lines,” said

Gretchen. “Con nect the C to the M, the M to the S, the S

to the W, the W to the W, the W to the C. What do you

think you are, Hansi?”

40 What Do You Think You Are?

What Do You Think You Are? 41

THE KEY

Dan ish

A won derful in troduction to any pro gram about castles orprinces and prin cesses, this story is made even more im pressive if youcan find a large metal key in this shape. Show it only af ter you havecompleted the story. Other Dan ish versions cite a prin cess as the maincharacter. Choose whichever you prefer.

43

There was once a Prince who lived in a castle with three

towers. Here is his cas tle.

It was al ways very busy in the castle. One day, the

Prince decided to go for a walk. He walked around to

the side of the cas tle and along the straight path in front

of it. After a while he came to a big lake.

He saw that there was an is land in the lake.

It was n’t far, so he swam to the is land and played there

all day, hav ing fun all by himself, with no one to or der

him about.

Suddenly, he no ticed it was be ginning to get dark. He

started to walk back on the path. But it was so dark he

did not see that he was walk ing slightly above the path.

He did not no tice the big stone right at the edge.

44 The Key

The Key 45

He stum bled, bumped against an other stone, and con -

tinued on his way.

But be fore long, he bumped against a third stone, a big-

ger one.

When he ar rived at the cas tle door, he could not open it

because he had lost his key when he stum bled in the

dark.

Who can help him find the key?

For pic ture-book hours, an appropriate book to use in con junc-tion with this story is The Key to the King dom by Betsy Mae stro (NewYork: Harcourt Brace, 1982), a picture book based on a very old cu mu-lative rhyme. The story could also be used as an in troduction to otherlocking devices, modern and old. One could ex plore the times andplaces where one locks things up and where one does not do so.

46 The Key

The Key 47

PER’S TROUSERS

Swed ish

While drawing sto ries of this type can be found in many Eu ro-pean coun tries, this one seems to be unique to Swe den. I learned itfrom Per Gustavsson, one of Swe den’s best-known sto rytellers. Hestates that it has been known in Sweden since the early 1900s. I use thename Per for the boy in the story, which is pronounced “pear,” like the fruit. But if you want to use this story with a very fa mous Swed ishchildren’s book called Pelle’s New Suit by Elsa Beskow, you mightwant to sub stitute the name Pelle.

49

Per is a Swedish boy. This is where he lives.

His best friend is Lisa. She lives over here.

One day Per went over to Lisa’s house and asked her if

she would like to go outside and play on a nearby hill.

Lisa said yes, so they went tum bling down the curvy

hill.

Then they walked along a short path.

50 Per’s Trou sers

Per’s Trou sers 51

After that, they started climbing back up the hill on a

dif fer ent path.

Suddenly, with a swish, they fell back down.

[Make the downward stroke very fast.]

But oh, my! Per had a big tear in his trousers. They had

to go home. They walked along an other short path.

52 Per’s Trou sers

Per’s Trou sers 53

Finally, they climbed the other side of the curvy hill

back to his house. No one was at home.

“Let’s go to my house,” said Lisa. Per fol lowed her home.

Lisa’s mother mended Per’s trousers. [Shade in space at

waist.]

“There you are!” she said. “All fine again.”

The name for trousers in Swed ish is byxor. How many names canyou find for “trousers” in Eng lish (some examples: pants, slacks,jeans, knickers, etc.). What are some of the slang names? Do you knowthe names for trousers in an other language?

54 Per’s Trou sers

Per’s Trou sers 55

LIGHT BULB

Swed ish, Amer i can

This is ac tually only based on a tra ditional drawing story. Theoriginal, which has been around at least since the 1940s, is a slightlyvulgar tale about a woman in a girdle and what hap pens when shebends over. It is curious that it was re ported extensively in Swe den inthe post–World War II years, but was obviously known in the UnitedStates as well. Did soldiers in that war ex change it? We will probablynever know.

Katy Horning, of the Co operative Children’s Book Center inMadison, Wis consin, re members it well from her school years whilegrowing up in the 1960s in Des Moines, Iowa. I have also found a num-ber of other adults who were teen-agers in those years, who remem-bered the drawing, but no story.

Here, Nisse is used as the name of a Swed ish boy. If you wish totie this in to a Christmas program, turn him into the Dan ish Christmaself, called a nisse. You must then explain what a nisse is.

57

Here is Nisse, peep ing over the top of some thing. It is a

book, be cause Nisse likes nothing better than to read. It

is his fa vor ite ac tiv ity.

You can of ten find him sit ting there, head be hind his

book, read ing away, read ing away.

How ever, Nisse also likes music. Sometimes you see

him be hind his mu sic stand, play ing the flute. He loves

to tootle away for hours at a time.

Some weeks he reads or plays the flute ev ery day for

hours. He forgets to tidy up his room.

Soon, dust balls gather all around the floor of his room.

58 Light Bulb

Light Bulb 59

His Papa scolds him: “Nisse, son, if you do not tidy up

this room, I will take away your books and your flute!

[For a Christmas version, I usually have the father

threaten he will not take nisse along to the homes where

he leaves treats.]

So Nisse takes the vacuum cleaner and vac uums all

around the room.

All of a sudden the room is very dark. “I can’t finish

vac u um ing,” says Nisse. “The light bulb has burned

out.”

“Well, here is an other one!” says Papa.

60 Light Bulb

Light Bulb 61

There are not many nisse picture books actually showing what anisse looks like, but one that can be found in some li braries is The Nissefrom Timsgaard by Vilhelm Bersoe (New York: Cow ard, McCann,1972). Christmas books that cover Den mark, Norway, and Sweden of -ten have pictures show ing the elf as he is known in old Christmas pic-tures from those countries. In Swe den, he is usually called theChrist mas tomten. At any rate, the an tics of these play ful, some timesnaughty, but mostly kind, small creatures are common to much ofNordic folklore. They are somewhat similar to the nixie of Brit ish Islesfolk lore.

62 Light Bulb

HOW TO GET RID OF MOSQUITOS

Par a guayan

I have never en countered this figure in any other country. Thereare not many bulldogs in Par aguay. Perhaps the story en tered Para-guay with the Ger man Men nonites who set tled there in large num bersin the nine teenth century.

63

There was once a mother in Paraguay who had two chil-

dren. Here are her two chil dren.

One day she took them out to play on the pa tio behind

their house.

Below the patio there was a large olla, a pot, in which

they kept the wa ter used for wa tering the plants. It was

also a favorite place for mosquitos to lay their eggs.

When the mother no ticed a lot of mosquitos flying

around her chil dren, she put a mos quito net around one

side of the patio.

She put a sec ond mos quito net around the other side of

the pa tio.

But the mos quitos still seemed to be fly ing around the

patio. So she emptied the pot of wa ter. [Shade in the

area of pot.]

64 How to Get Rid of Mosquitos

How to Get Rid of Mosquitos 65

Then she put a huge third mos quito net around every-

thing.

The children did not like be ing en closed in all those

nets. First one punched a hole in the net. Then the sec -

ond child punched a hole in the net.

The wind came along and blew the torn net ting out

above the holes.

When the mother came out again, there were no more

mosquitos—only a bulldog guarding her chil dren!

66 How to Get Rid of Mosquitos

How to Get Rid of Mosquitos 67

LITTLE CIRCLE, BIG CIRCLE

In do ne sian

Virtually all teachers of young chil dren in Indonesia seem to beaware of this charming story. A variant is also known in Ma laysia (seethe fol lowing story). It should really be sung, pref erably orig inally inBahasa In donesia and then in Eng lish. If you can not find some one tosing it in Bahasa, at least try to say a few of the phrases. The full text inBahasa is given in the “Sources” sec tion, together with in structions onhow to sing it. The end pic ture is in terpreted differently by children,depending on where they grow up. Some see a teddy bear, others apig, still others a ko ala or a monkey. Af ter performing the story, askthe chil dren what they see. Dis cuss what other an imal might be in thepicture, de pending on who is looking at it. Chil dren of the rain for estseem to perceive only a monkey in the drawing.

69

Lit tle cir cle,

Lit tle cir cle,

Big ger cir cle.

Lit tle cir cle,

Lit tle cir cle,

Big, big cir cle

Add a ba nana,

Add a ba nana

Add a big ba nana

Lit tle cir cle,

Lit tle cir cle

Coiling up and around.

70 Little Cir cle, Big Circle

Little Cir cle, Big Circle 71

A six, times six;

That makes thirty-six.

A six, a six

Add an an gle!

And what do you think is there?

72 Little Cir cle, Big Circle

Little Cir cle, Big Circle 73

GOOD NIGHT!

Ma lay sian

This drawing story figure could have originated in Ja pan, where asimilar figure is widely known. In the In donesian ver sion, as men -tioned in the previous tale, this is per formed while singing a de lightfulsong. In Malaysia, it is commonly told to small children as a prep ara-tion for bed time or naptime, or during the evenings of Ramadan.

75

A small circle; a small circle.

Now, a big ger circle.

Then, a great big circle!

Six times six;

That makes thirty-six.

Another six and six;

76 Good Night!

Good Night! 77

I love Papa! I love Mama!

Good Night!

And what hap pens?

A teddy bear ap pears, to go with you to bed.

78 Good Night!

Good Night! 79

RIGHT ANSWER, WRONG ANSWER

Ma lay sian

It is al ways in teresting to have sto ries that give two sides of ademonstration or question. Here is a story, in two ver sions, withwhich most students can identify. Tell both versions and then ask theaudience which they prefer. What does this tell us about at least somechildren in Ma laysia, and their at titude to school? If you can get holdof some Malaysian ringgit coins, you can show those in ad vance andthere is no need to explain what ringgit are. Oth erwise, be fore tellingthe story, explain that ten ringgit are the ap proximate equivalent offour dollars.

81

It rained,and rained,and rained,and rained.

The waves came.

Father gave me ten ringgit. Mother gave me ten ringgit.

I went to school.

Teacher asked: “How much is three plus three?”

I an swered: “Six.”

Teacher said: “That is cor rect!.”

So now I can go home.

82 Right An swer, Wrong An swer

Right An swer, Wrong An swer 83

RIGHT ANSWER, WRONG ANSWER(Sec ond Ver sion)

Do ex actly the same for the first four drawings, up through thephrase: “I went to school.” Then change as follows.

Teacher asked me: “How much is three plus three?

I an swered: “Three plus three is eight!”

Teacher said: “Wrong!”

“Now you must stay after school.”

84

Right An swer, Wrong An swer 85

THE DOH BIRD

Ben gali

Like many of the Japanese ekaki uta, this is full of puns in the orig i-nal Bengali. For ex ample, to count from one to five in Bengali, onesays: ek, doi, teen, char, panch. The doi or two is writ ten ex actly as the fig-ure in the feet is given be low. The letter that has the “d” sound in Ben -gali is pro nounced “doh” and is written like the first fig ure in thedrawing be low (al though the tail is some what ex aggerated here forpurposes of the story). Be fore telling this, I do not explain about dohand doi, un less I know I have children from In dia or Ban gladesh in theaudience. How ever, after telling it to chil dren eight and older, it is funto show how we can make up stories using pictures hidden in some ofour numbers and letters.

87

The Doh had a bel lyache.

A re ally bad bellyache.

Auntie came along and said: “Here are two stools. Sit

down and take a rest.”

The bel lyache got worse.

Auntie called the doctor. The doc tor took a good look all

over Doh.

He gave him a pill. Now tell me, is he a dodo bird?

88 The Doh Bird

The Doh Bird 89

HOW MAN AND WOMAN FOUNDTHEIR PLACE IN THE WORLD

Chi nese

There are numerous leg ends that tell how Chi nese first came to be written down us ing strokes that some times make a picture. One isgiven in the in troduction. As stated there, some Chi nese char acters are based on pictures of the words they sig nify, but most are not. Still, aclever person can usually find a pic ture hidden in the character. Insome Chi nese fam ilies, short sto ries are in vented to help the chil drenremember key characters that rep resent names and facts in thatfamily’s history.

If you have a friend or relative who knows how to do Chi nese cal -ligraphy, in vite him or her to draw the characters as you tell the story.The ideo graphs to the right de pict the word or words cap italized ineach sen tence be low. The small let ters in dicate the or der of the strokesand the point at which each stroke begins. In other words, in the firstcharacter, for Man, one must be gin the sec ond stroke at the top, wherethe small “b” is located, and not go from bottom to top.

91

Long ago, Man stood up and started to walk on twofeet, like this.

Now Man thought he was the cen ter of the uni verse. Helooked around and saw that he was quite small in com-parison to many things around him. So Man stretchedout his arms to feel Big and Tall.

But wherever Man looked, there was some thing big gerthan he was. Most of all, when he looked up he saw theHeav ens above.

Man tried to pierce the heav ens. He be came a LearnedMan and a Worker.

He bought a Field and be gan to grow rice.

He planted a Tree near his field, so that he would haveshade in which to rest af ter working in the rice field.

But he still lacked some thing. “I need Woman,” he said.At first, man pictured Woman in a bowing po sition.

“No, she must be still more hum ble,” said man. Heshowed Woman kneeling down, as though she werekneeling down in front of man.

But Woman was not the kind of per son to kneel forlong. She got up and be gan to take big strides, to showthat she could keep up with man.

The man and woman had a Baby.

And they lived ever af ter in Peace and Contentment.

92 How Man and Woman Found Their Place in the World

How Man and Woman Found Their Place in the World 93

Can you see what makes up Peace and Contentment?

Find the symbol for Woman, be low the sym bol for

House or Roof.

94 How Man and Woman Found Their Place in the World

THE ABSENT-MINDED JUDGE

Ko rean

The creation of Hangul, the Korean alphabet, was a stupendouscultural achieve ment ac complished in the fif teenth cen tury. Beforethat Ko reans used Chi nese script. There fore, they have in heritedmany of the same ways of tell ing sto ries through the use of pictureshid den in ideo graphs. The So ci ety of Ko rean Oral Lit er a ture, af fil i atedwith Se oul Na tional Uni versity, has col lected a number of funnydrawing sto ries, most of them tied in with the learn ing of Chi nesecharacters or letters of the Ko rean al phabet. Some of them are filledwith sex ual nuances more suited to adult telling. This short, sim pletale is a good springboard for discussing the different ways we have of addressing each other, the fact that we like to use visualization to helpus remember things, and that we all sometimes make mistakes!

Before telling the story, it is a good idea to have a short discussionon the ways in which we greet oth ers po litely, in public: Mis ter, Mrs.Miss, Ms. in English; Mon sieur, Madame, Mademoiselle in French;and so on. The ac cepted ad dress in Jap anese is to add san to the sur -name, for ex ample, Pellowski-san. In the same way, sobang is used inKorean, added on to the surname.

95

Long ago in Ko rea there was an ab sent-minded judge

who was sent to a new place to hold his court. He took

out a square piece of pa per and called out to his new as -

sistant: “What is your name?”

“My fam ily name is Pae,” an swered the as sistant. Pae

means “pear” in Eng lish.

The judge wanted to remember his new assistant’s

name, so he lifted his writ ing brush, dipped it in ink,

and hast ily drew a pic ture of some thing round, that he

thought would re mind him of a pear.

The next day, the judge wanted his new as sistant to

come and help him. He tried to remember his name, but

could not. He looked at the piece of pa per. It looked like

a pic ture of a ball, which is kong in Ko rean.

“Come here, Kong-sobang,” called the judge. “Your

name is Kong, is n’t it?”

“No, sir. I am Pae-sobang,” an swered the as sistant,

which, of course, trans lates as Mr. Pear, not Mr. Ball.

The judge looked at his pic ture. He did not want it to be

wrong. He quickly added a stroke. “Oh, I see the stem

fell off of my pear over night,” he said.

To this day, in Ko rea, if your name is Kong, many peo-

ple will call you Pae, and then you will both have a

good laugh, re membering the absent-minded judge of

long-ago.

96 The Ab sent-Minded Judge

The Ab sent-Minded Judge 97

EKAKI UTAJap a nese

As men tioned in the In troduction, ekaki uta (pic ture drawing storychants) are a fre quently en countered play activity among Jap anesechildren. Each of the sto ries in this sec tion has been freely adaptedfrom the rough trans lations given to me by Shigeo Watanabe, andSachiko Saionji Watanabe (no re lation). I have tried to keep a bit of therhythm of the original Japanese words, but that was not always pos si-ble. When ever possible, I have in dicated where there is a pun on thewords in the orig inal version, and I have tried to in clude a pun in thetranslated version as well. When draw ing and tell ing these sto ries, tryto chant the phrases in a lilting kind of sing-song manner.

After hear ing and see ing a num ber of these sto ries, children of tenlike to try do ing them on their own. It takes some prac tice to get thefigures drawn so that the parts are of a good size in re lation to thewhole. This might make a good short ex ercise in math ematical rela-tionships. An art or number ac tivity that chil dren re spond to with en-thusiasm is to cre ate a face or other figure using only numbers.

98

THE CAREFREE GIRLS

Jap a nese

According to most scholars in Japan who have stud ied the ekakiuta, the fig ure en countered most frequently is of a hu man face. Thisseems to have been the case from the ear liest re corded fig ures. Itwould take an en tire book to give all the variations that have been re-corded. Here is a typical vari ant. In Jap anese, there is a wonderful punon the Japanese num ber eight in the phrase, “they ate honey.” Luckily,this trans lates well by us ing the fig ure eight as a hair-bow, at the pointin the story when the girl “ate” (eight) the honey.

99

Te-ko-chan, a lit tle girl of Japan,

Has a best friend, Ku-ko-chan.

They ate some honey.

Their sis ter scolded them.

Hei-ki-de; hei-ki-de. They don’t care; they don’t care.

They are as care free as two lit tle birds.

They went to school and took a test.

They got a zero.

But ev eryone likes them anyway!

100 The Carefree Girls

The Carefree Girls 101

IS IT GRANDFATHER?

Jap a nese

Here is an other common face-drawing story chant. This one wasoften chanted by using syllables from the hirakana or katakana meth odsof writ ten Jap anese, or fig ures from kanji, the writ ten form of Japanesebased on Chi nese characters. To ap preciate the puns in this story andin oth ers as well, one should learn the names and figures for tra di-tional Japanese numbers:

ichi ni san shi go (cur rent use)hito futa mi yo itsu (tra di tional use)

one two three four five

103

Take a one.

One and one are two.

Are these three wrinkles?

Is this a bald head?

Are there four whis kers on this chin?

Go! Go! Look at that!

Is it grand father?

There were many ver sions of face or head-drawing sto -

ries in other parts of the world, as well as Ja pan. If you

are tell ing this to grandparents, or to senior citizens, ask

if any remember such drawing sto ries.

104 Is It Grand father?

Is It Grand father? 105

SHALL I DRAW YOUR PORTRAIT?

Jap a nese

The mon key ap pears fre quently in Jap anese draw ing sto ries. Inalmost all cases, num bers are used to make up part of the fig ure. Com-pare this with the num ber quiz story in my earlier book, The StoryVine.

107

Shall I draw your por trait?

First, I must make a ten, sideways.

Then I must make a three, also sideways.

Next I must put in two small ze ros.

Below them, I must put in a small hill.

Above them, I put in a curv ing road.

Now two doughnuts: one for you and one for me!

Now stick your tongue out be cause—

You are a mon key!

108 Shall I Draw Your Por trait?

Shall I Draw Your Por trait? 109

TO HELP YOU FEEL BETTER

Jap a nese

The word maru in Japanese means “circle.” By add ing chan, onegets the girl’s name Maruchan. This name is often used in Japanesedrawing stories while drawing a cir cle and re ferring to a girl at thesame time.

111

Maruchan fell down.

She got a big bump on her head.

Her brother put a ban dage around her head.

Maruchan stuck out her tongue!

Mother came and said:

“Here is some tea to help you feel better.”

112 To Help You Feel Better

To Help You Feel Better 113

THE OCTOPUS

Jap a nese

This is one of the most pop ular of all ekaki uta. There are many ver-sions and most Japanese children who have just learned to write canchant and draw this lit tle story. Make sure you do six strokes of “rain-ing.” When I first started doing this, I oc casionally would stop at fivestrokes and I was once informed by a first-grader, very solemnly, thatan oc topus has eight ten tacles. I try to make sure I now get it right.

115

Three lit tle worms came crawling along, crawling along,

crawl ing along.

Three rice crackers were sing ing a song, sing ing a song,

singing a song.

It started rain ing, rain ing, rain ing, rain ing, rain ing, rain -

ing [make sure you do six].

It started sleeting, sleet ing, sleet ing, sleet ing, sleet ing,

sleet ing, sleet ing.

All of a sud den, oh, what a sur prise! There was an oc to-

pus right be fore my eyes!

116 The Oc to pus

The Oc to pus 117

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

Ja pan

This ekaki uta is very popular with Japanese chil dren be cause fishare very im portant in their diet. Also, when vis iting ponds andstreams, they love to capture small minnows or goldfish and takethem home in a bowl or plastic bag.

119

Once there was a small moun tain.

At the eastern foot of the mountain were three houses.

In the houses lived some farmers.

In spring they planted a garden.

They planted three rows of rad ishes.

120 The One That Got Away

The One That Got Away 121

In the other di rection they planted three rows of

let tuces.

To the west of the garden were two ponds.

A round one—

And an oval one.

Oh! The pond is over flowing.

The big fish got away!

If you are tell ing this to a group of senior citizens, ask

members of the audience to tell you about the fish that

got away from them.

122 The One That Got Away

The One That Got Away 123

THE DUCK

Jap a nese

It is better not to give away the ti tle of this at the be ginning. In Jap -a nese, ni is the num ber two (see the story IS IT GRANDFATHER? onp. 103). It can also be the word for brother. Yen are Japanese moneyunits. If you wish to substitute dollars or cents, do so.

125

My two broth ers

Got three yen.

They bought a small ball.

One brother asked:

“What let ter do question words be gin with?”

The other brother an swered:

“W—for who, what, when, where, how.”

“That’s right. So put a W sideways, here,”

said the other brother.

And what did they have?

126 The Duck

The Duck 127

WHAT HAPPENEDAFTER THE RAIN

Jap a nese

This ekaki uta has many variations. Some times the pig is shownfrom the side; at other times it is shown fac ing forward, as here.

129

One day it rained

And it rained

And it rained.

It rained so hard, pud dles be gan to form. A pud dle

formed here.

Two puddles formed here and here;

Two more puddles grew here.

130 What Hap pened Af ter the Rain

What Hap pened Af ter the Rain 131

The pud dles overflowed and made a big pud dle.

It rained more, very heavily.

The puddles overflowed again.

They made a gi ant puddle!

“Ee, Ee, Ee,” said the pig. “I love pud dles.”

132 What Hap pened Af ter the Rain

What Hap pened Af ter the Rain 133

After do ing the drawing, if you have lit tle children in

your audience who are just learning their numbers, ask

them, How many ones are in the draw ing? Help them

count the ten ones if they can not see them all. Then, ask

them, How many ze ros are in the drawing. Again, help

them to count the ten ze ros. [Don’t forget the three in

the tail.]

Then ask, When you put one and zero to gether, what do

you get? Write out a big num ber ten at the bot tom of

your draw ing.

134 What Hap pened Af ter the Rain

PANDA

Jap a nese

Do not give the ti tle un til the end of the story. It would be good tolo cate a furoshiki, a square silk cloth used for wrapping special gifts inJapan. You could then use this story to introduce different ways ofwrapping or pre senting gifts in var ious parts of the world.

135

First, I put down two chopsticks.

Next, I put three beans in place.

Two of the beans are still in their pods.

I wrap them all up care fully in a furoshiki.

The ends of the cloth make two round bumps, at the

top.

Oh, look, I have a friendly panda to give as a gift.

[Shade in eyes and ears.]

136 Panda

Panda 137

There are numerous panda picture books to use with this story.One of my fa vorites is a book published many years ago: Mil ton theEarly Riser by Rob ert Kraus, il lustrated by Jose Aruego (New York:Windmill Books, 1972).

138 Panda

THE CHEERLEADER

Jap a nese

Again, do not give away the story sur prise by tell ing the ti tle un tilthe very end. Note that most of the num bers from one to ten can befound in this drawing. If appropriate and if time al lows, ask the chil -dren in the au dience, Who can find a one in the draw ing? Who canfind a two? and so on. Give each child a marker of a dif ferent color andask each to come up and trace the number in your fin ished drawing. Ifyou pre fer to have girls instead of boys playing baseball, substitute“two sis ters” in line two for “two brothers” and change the other linesas necessary.

139

Lit tle Zero

Had two broth ers.

They both liked to play base ball.

Older Brother was the best hitter. He was al ways bat ter

number four in the line up.

There’s a pitch to him. [Stroke over the down stroke in

the four, mak ing it lon ger, and then add the cir cle at the

tip.]

140 The Cheerleader

The Cheerleader 141

He hits a home run. [Stroke over the horizontal stroke in

the four and add the circle at the end.]

The peo ple cheer.

Rah! Rah! Rah!

Rah! Rah! Rah!

Oh, look! There is the cheerleader! [Put in sideways six

for the eye.]

142 The Cheerleader

The Cheerleader 143

At the end of the story, one could have a discussion of the fa voritesports chil dren fol low in dif ferent parts of the world. Note that it is anevent in base ball that is be ing cheered here. One could not substituteAmerican football, because it is not a popular sport in Japan, but soc-cer would be possible. Have the au dience sug gest ap propriate ac tionsfor the drawings in figures three through six, if they were play ing asport in another part of the world. For ex ample, in Green Bay, Wiscon-sin (football); in Brazil (soc cer); in China (ping-pong); in Wimble don,England (tennis); and so on. Or, if it is near the time for an Olympics,one could substitute the name of a well-known ath lete. Ask the audi-ence how the story words could be changed, so the crowd could becheering for that ath lete.

144 The Cheerleader

CICADA

Jap a nese

This story is ac companied by a very well-known song, sung inmost early grades in Japanese schools. For those wish ing to sing it, themusic is given in Iwai (see the Bib liography). The term used for the an-tennae in most versions is whis kers, but use an tennae if you wish to be more sci en tif i cally correct.

145

On a moonlit desert, I open up my big um brella.

Suddenly, over the top I see two lit tle eyes peer ing at

me.

Two whis kers start sway ing in the wind.

A wing flaps by and folds up on the right.

Another wing flaps by and folds up on the left.

Put a tip on, and that makes—a ci cada. What noise does

he make?

146 Ci cada

Ci cada 147

WATCH OUT!YOU’LL TURN INTO A FROG!

Jap a nese

In many versions of this drawing story, the marbles are peas.However, marbles seem more ap propriate here. Don’t give the ti tle tothe story before telling it. I have sub stituted more com monly knownnames for the boy and girl than those gen erally used by Jap anese chil-dren when tell ing and draw ing. If you pre fer, reverse the names andhave the boy stick out his tongue at the girl, and change into a frog.You might even use this as a hu morous introduction to variants on“The Frog Prince.”

149

Ichiro was a boy in Ja pan.

He had two small marbles and two big marbles.

Along came Kiyoko. She asked Ichiro for some of the

marbles. He would not give her any.

Kiyoko stuck out her tongue at Ichiro!

“Watch out!” said Ichiro. “You will turn into a frog.”

150 Watch Out! You’ll Turn into a Frog!

Watch Out! You’ll Turn into a Frog! 151

CATERPILLAR

Jap a nese

I saw this chanted by a child us ing green chalk on a sidewalk.Pickled plums are a Japanese del icacy. Later, I saw other ver sions inwhich the cat erpillar is depicted as one long hor izontal stroke with aseries of short vertical strokes through it, and two round eyes, thus:

153

I lined up five dumplings on my plate.

On the big gest dump ling, I put two pick led plums.

Three hairs popped out of the dump ling on this side.

And three more popped out on this side.

Oh, look! If I put a hair-bow at the end, it makes a cat er-

pil lar.

154 Cat er pil lar

Cat er pil lar 155

SANTA CLAUS

Jap a nese

Santa Claus is al most as important in modern Japanese culture ashe is in North America. This drawing story could be used to find outthe dif ferent choices chil dren would make if they were inventing anddrawing the story in North America. Draw the story as shown here,using col ored markers on white pa per: red for the hat, black out linefor the white items, pink for the ears and mouth. Colored chalk couldalso be used, on a blackboard. Then ask the children to draw Santa and name the dif ferent foods they would see as part of the pic ture. Thisstory can also be used as a felt-board story, in which case each itemshould be made entirely in col ored felt and placed on a neutral feltbackground.

157

Maruchan, a lit tle Jap anese girl, had a red triangle hat

that she loved to wear when she went out shop ping

with her mother.

For lunch one day, just be fore they went out shop ping,

Maruchan’s mother offered her a rice ball.

“I don’t want a rice ball,” said Maruchan. “I want a

bread roll.” So her mother gave her a long bread roll

in stead.

They went shop ping to buy food for their din ner. First,

Mother bought two long daikon—white rad ishes.

Then Mother bought two pink plums and a yam—

a sweet po tato.

158 Santa Claus

Santa Claus 159

She put the rice in the pot to boil.

But she forgot to watch the rice. First it boiled over on

this side.

Then it boiled over on this side. And look at Santa

Claus, so sur prised!

160 Santa Claus

Santa Claus 161

THE BADGER

Jap a nese

Badgers are very popular in much of Japanese folklore. Havinggrown up in the badger state of Wis consin, I felt I must in clude thisclever little story. It would be good to have a one yen piece to showchildren in the audience.

163

There were three lit tle Jap anese girls.

They got three yen from their mother.

They bought a big rice ball.

When they tried to di vide it up, it broke apart.

There it lies, all squashed flat. Oh, look! A badger is

waiting to eat it up!

164 The Badger

The Badger 165

Japanese badgers look a bit dif ferent from North American badg-ers. Use a good an imal en cyclopedia to show the differences. Goodbooks to share af ter this story are the Fran ces books by Russell andLillian Hoban. The Badger and the Magic Fan by Tony Johnston, il lus-trated by Tomie de Paola (New York: Putnam, 1990) is a fairly typ icalJap a nese folk tale fea tur ing the badger.

166 The Badger

SAND STORIESAus tra lian Ab orig ine

In many Aus tralian Ab original groups, stories are told whilemaking drawings in the sand. This is usually done by women or girls.Sometimes the sto ries are ep isodes from real life. At other times theyare myths. They always re fer to spe cific places in the region of Aus tra-lia that the group comes from. I owe a big debt to the late Jack Da vis,who first told me about this type of sto rytelling and in troduced me toseveral persons in the Al ice Springs and Darwin areas of Aus traliawho could dem onstrate it.

I first re corded my way of per forming this story in The Story Vine(New York: Macmillan, 1984). There, I suggested using a glass-bottomed box on a lighted overhead pro jector and showed how toconstruct the box. This is still an ef fective way of tell ing a sand story,because the sand flows very smoothly over the glass. How ever, af terbreaking two such boxes in my trav els, I be gan us ing plas tic boxes, butstill placed on a lighted overhead pro jector.

From a one-inch deep plastic picture frame, of the type that has aslightly smaller card board box holding the picture in place, I discardthe cardboard box and use only the plastic one. I gen erally use an eightby twelve–inch size. It is im portant to use fine art sand, avail able frommost arts and crafts stores. The color does not matter.

Pour a thin layer of sand over the en tire bottom of the box. Ex peri-ment un til you find the thickness that works best for you. Use yourfingertip to draw the de signs. Lift the box slightly off the projector and shake the box gently from side to side to smooth the sand for the nextset of de signs. I in dicate this by using the word “shake” at the ap pro-pri ate points.

These stories can also be drawn on a flip chart or on the black-board, but it is much better to draw them in the sand. The ef fect of thelighted overhead pro jector in a darkened room is a bit like the eve ningfirelight that might be pres ent when the sto ries are told in their origi-nal context. It is also de liciously mysterious and a bit spooky. Fur ther-more, this is one type of story that works well in large as semblies orauditoriums, be cause the pic tures can be pro jected on a large screen ora very large white wall. I like to have the pro jector placed on a low ta -ble, and I sit on a lower stool, or the floor, to sug gest being seated onthe ground.

167

For a small group, one can simply make the figures in the sandwhile telling the story as the oth ers watch and listen.

This is a very sacred story for many groups in Aus tralia andshould be told solemnly, and with reverence. The term “walkabout”refers to a short journey, on foot, that Australian Aborigines of tenmake to visit a sacred site or to get away from their daily routine andconnect to traditional life. “Billabong” refers to a pool of water, or asmall branch of a larger river.

I taught my self some basic designs as prac ticed by the Wal biri,found in Nancy Munn’s ex cel lent book (see the Bib li og ra phy). How-ever, af ter a visit to Australia, and a won derful ses sion with teach ersin Al ice Springs, I found I could simplify the de signs be cause many ofthe women and girls drew de signs that barely sug gested the ac tion.Consequently, I de veloped these ba sic de sign forms that are easy toremember and draw.

•For characters that are walk ing, a straight horizontal line isdrawn.

•For a character that is standing still, the line is vertical.

•For a char acter seated, a small semicircle is drawn.

•The pandanus palm is drawn like the top part of an um brella.

•Birds are the usual sim ple figure.

•Fish are similar to a “v” printed sideways.

•A river is a curv ing line.

•A billabong or lake is an oval.

•A snake is a very curvy line.

•A snake laying eggs, a spi ral with dots in cen ter. For other an i-mals, use rough sketches of footprints, or some dis tinctive char-acteristic, such as emu’s long neck.

A de lightful and in formative pic ture book to use in conjunctionwith these sto ries is When I Was Little Like You by Mary Malbunka,which in cludes both Walbiri and Luritja ex pressions and sanddesigns.

168 Sand Sto ries

THE RAINBOW SNAKE

Aus tra lian Ab orig ine

169

In the Dream time, there was once a wise man named

Nagacork.

One day he went for a walk along the Fly ing Fox River.

He made a deep billabong, a wa ter hole. He wanted to

put Jammutt, his water-shooting, sacred fish, into that

billabong.

But when he went back to the small pool where he had

left Jammutt, the fish was no lon ger there. [Shake]

Nagacork was puz zled. He thought Jammutt had es -

caped. He be gan walking along the river

until he came upon some tribesmen spearing for fish.

“Have you seen Jammutt, my sa cred fish?” Nagacork

called out to the fishermen. But the tribesmen only laughed

at him and an swered: “Here, take one of these fish.”

But they were ordinary fish. They were not Jammutt.

[Shake]

170 The Rain bow Snake

The Rain bow Snake 171

Nagacork con tinued on his way along the river un til he

came to a group of women and girls, bending over and

searching for lily buds. They are de licious to eat.

“Have you seen Jammutt, my sa cred fish?” he called out

to them. But they were so busy look ing for lily buds

they did not even look up. [Shake]

Sud denly, Nagacork saw a col ony of ants, crawling

along the ground in a line.

He saw how they came to a coo li bah tree and be gan to

climb up it.

They went straight for a hole at the top of the coo li bah

tree.

Nagacork de cided he must climb up the tree and see

what was in that hole. [Shake]

Nagacork climbed up un til he came to the hole.

He looked down, and there, he saw the bones of

Jammutt, his sa cred fish.

172 The Rain bow Snake

The Rain bow Snake 173

Some evil tribesmen had killed Jammutt, eaten the flesh,

and thrown the bones in the hole. [Shake]

Nagacork was very an gry. He went back to his camp

under the pandanus palms.

He sat down next to his camp fire and be gan to call out:

“I wait! I wait! I wait!”

Up in one of the trees, Dat-Dat, the green par rot, called

out: “Look, Nagacork! Look what’s com ing from the

north!”

Sure enough, there from the north came

Kurrichalpongo, the great black rock snake.

[Shake]

Kurrichalpongo headed straight for the billabong that

Nagacork had made for Jammutt.

174 The Rain bow Snake

The Rain bow Snake 175

There at the billabong were some tribesmen, spearing

for fish. They were among the evil tribes men who had

killed Jammutt. They wanted the billabong for their own

fish ing uses.

Kurrichalpongo came in from below with a rush of

wa ter.

The wa ter rushed over the tribesmen’s legs, over their

waists, over their shoul ders, over their heads. [Swirl

sand in circles from bot tom of tribesmen to top.]

Most of the tribes men were drowned. [Shake]

Kurrichalpongo con tinued on her way. With her pass -

ing, she cre ated all the fea tures of the land of Australia.

She created the great plain.

As soon as she had passed, bit ter yams grew up from

the ground. They grow there to this day.

[Shake]

Then Kurrichalpongo went to the desert and curled up.

176 The Rain bow Snake

The Rain bow Snake 177

Before long, she laid a nest of many eggs and sat, curled

up around them.

When the eggs hatched out, they were all rainbow

snakes, sa cred snakes. They went off in all di rections of

Australia, tak ing with them the wis dom of

Kurrichalpongo.

[Pause, and then shake.]

Now two of those snakes went to Luralingi, where there

lived two of the evil tribesmen who had killed Jammutt.

The two tribesmen were out hunt ing and they saw the

two rain bow snakes.

They shot and killed the rainbow snakes with their

spears. [Make a swift line from men to snakes and then

shake.]

Nagacork was sit ting by his camp fire.

The two tribesmen sud denly stood be fore him and said:

“Look what we have brought you!” They threw the

snakes at Nagacork’s feet. Kurrichalpongo ap peared

again. She turned into Bo long, the gi ant rain bow snake.

178 The Rain bow Snake

The Rain bow Snake 179

“You men should not have done that,” said Nagacork

sadly. “Those are rain bow snakes, sa cred snakes. You

will surely die for what you have done.”

Bo long caused thun der and lightning and a great flood

of rain. [Swirl en tire picture with fin gertips so sand is

completely mixed up, then shake.]

The flood cov ered the earth. A few hu mans went to high

ground and were saved. They became the an cestors of

the orig i nal Aus tra lians.

Others changed into birds and flew away. They be came

the an cestors of the birds that fly around Aus tralia to-

day.

Still oth ers changed them selves into fish, or water crea-

tures. They are the an cestors of the wa ter an imals that

ex ist to day in Aus tra lia.

Some changed them selves into kangaroos, or ko alas or

other animals, and they scuttled away. They were the

ancestors of those animals that ex ist to day.

[Shake]

180 The Rain bow Snake

The Rain bow Snake 181

Fi nally, Kurrichalpongo went off to Moorinjairee. There,

she met up with Nagacork and the re maining rain bow

snakes. And there, in a deep hole in the ground, they all

went back into the earth—first Nagacork

then Kurrichalpongo and all the rain bow snakes.

They have re mained there ever since.

The Ab original peo ple of Australia say they will not

come back un til hu mans can learn to live with re spect

for all that is around them. Only then will the Dream-

time re turn.

182 The Rain bow Snake

The Rain bow Snake 183

LITTLE BOY AND EMU

Nunggubuyu—Aus tra lian Ab orig ine

185

A mother and fa ther were on walkabout with their son,

Little Boy. The parents walked ahead, and Lit tle Boy fol -

lowed be hind.

[Shake]

Little Boy kept throwing his spear at wild gooseberry

bushes.

He called out to his mother and fa ther ev ery now and

then to tell them he was still fol lowing them. But soon

he had fallen far be hind.

Now Lit tle Boy did not know that Emu was watch ing

him from behind the bushes.

[Shake]

Suddenly, Emu came out from be hind the bushes and

said: “Come here!”

But Lit tle Boy ran away as fast as he could. Emu ran

af ter him.

[Shake]

Little Boy jumped into a billabong. The water was too

deep and too wide for Emu.

Emu ran to cut down a pandanus palm.

[Shake]

186 Little Boy and Emu

Little Boy and Emu 187

Emu took the pandanus palm to the billabong and be -

gan to drag it through the water, sideways, to see if she

could catch Lit tle Boy.

But Lit tle Boy just took hold of the pandanus palm and

got a free ride in the water. It was fun! Just be fore Emu

pulled the tree out of the water, Lit tle Boy let go. [Shake]

When Emu had the pandanus palm out of the wa ter, she

saw that she had caught some fish in its branches, but

not Lit tle Boy.

[Shake]

Emu continued to walk along the river, searching for

Little Boy. She saw his tracks leading to a tall pandanus

palm.

Up near the top of the trunk was a hole.

Emu thought she saw Lit tle Boy’s eyes shin ing in that

hole.

[Shake]

Emu started to cut around the hole, un derneath Little

Boy.

188 Little Boy and Emu

Little Boy and Emu 189

“Don’t cut there! Cut here!” shouted Lit tle Boy as he

knocked on the tree above his head. [Point to tree top

with fin ger in sand.]

Emu stretched her neck. [Using fin gertip, elon gate

Emu’s neck until it reaches hole.]

Little Boy stuck his head out of the hole and bit Emu.

“Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!” shrieked Emu. [Shake]

Emu fell down. She lay at the bot tom of the tree.

Cautiously, Lit tle Boy climbed out of the hole and ran

after his par ents, fol lowing their tracks as quickly as he

could.

You can adapt many sto ries, from Aus tralia or from

other coun tries, and tell them by mak ing pic tures in the

sand. In vent your own figures to rep resent places, ani-

mals, or hu mans.

190 Little Boy and Emu

Little Boy and Emu 191

THE LITTLE GIRLAND HER GRANDMOTHER

Napaskiak, Yuk

One of the favorite playthings of cer tain in digenous chil dren’sgroups in Alaska and the Be ring Strait area is a knife! Not a sharp knifefor cut ting, but a storyknife. In the olden days, storyknives were madeof carved bone or tusk. In more re cent times, children use or dinarymetal ta ble knives. Storyknifing is most common among young girls,but small boys do it as well. In win ter, the pictures are drawn in thesnow. In the other sea sons, the pic tures are made in patches of squishymud or sand that can be pat ted into a smooth surface. The picturesvary from lo cale to lo cale, and from child to child. Here are some of themore commonly used hu man fig ures among the Napaskiak people:

Child Adult Older per son, usu ally grandmother

Each time a character speaks, a stroke or quotation marks areadded above the fig ure representing that char acter. Some times thecharacter is erased by smooth ing over the snow, mud, or wet sand, ei -ther to in dicate that the char acter has moved on to other ac tion or tomake room for another design.

When tell ing this story out side in the snow or wet sand or mud,use an or dinary ta ble knife. For in side tell ing, use chalk on a black-board, or marker on a large flip chart on an easel. Or you could adaptthe de signs and use the sand tech nique men tioned in the AustralianAb orig i nal stories.

Build up the suspense by slow ing down and mak ing your voicesofter at the point where the lit tle girl is climb ing the hill.

I have in dicated where to erase, if you are us ing the blackboard orsand story method. If you are using markers on a large paper padplaced on an ea sel, sim ply flip to the next piece of paper.

193

Once, long ago in Alaska, there was an old-style house.

It had a round en try room at tached at one side. There

was a pas sageway that went from the en try room into

the house. There was a firepit for warming in the en try-

way and a firepit for cooking in the main part of the

house.

Along the in side walls of the house were sleeping

benches. There were also cup boards for food, and uten -

sils and clothing.

In that house lived a grand mother and her

grand daugh ter.

Not far from the house was a river. In the distance, be-

yond the river, was a high hill.

One spring day the grand mother said to her grand -

daughter: “Let’s go out and cut grass.”

“All right,” agreed the granddaughter. [Put the strokes

over their heads, in dicating they have spo ken.]

They went to the side of the river and be gan to cut grass.

When they had fin ished, the grand daughter looked up.

In the dis tance she saw the high hill.

194 The Lit tle Girl and Her Grandmother

The Lit tle Girl and Her Grandmother 195

“I want to go to the top of that hill,” she said. [Stroke

over her head.]

“No, you must not go there,” said her grandmother. “It

is dan gerous.” [Stroke over grandmother’s head. Erase

or flip to next sheet.]

One day in summer the grandmother and the girl went

to the berry bushes that grew along the river. They

picked all the ber ries they could find. When they had

finished, the granddaughter again looked off to ward the

hill.

“I want to go to the top of that hill,” she said. [Stroke

over her.]

“Don’t go there. It is dan gerous,” re peated the grand-

mother.” [Stroke over her. Erase or flip to next sheet.]

In the fall, the grand mother and her grand daughter took

their kay aks down to the river. They paddled their kay -

aks to a part of the river where fish were plentiful. They

fished un til they had enough to last for the win ter.

“Now I am go ing to climb to the top of that hill,” said

the granddaughter. [Stroke over her head.]

“I told you many times before. Don’t go there. It is dan-

gerous,” in sisted the grandmother. [Stroke over her

head. Erase or flip to next sheet.]

Winter ar rived, and with it came a blan ket of snow. The

granddaughter and grand mother were sit ting in their

house.

196 The Lit tle Girl and Her Grandmother

The Lit tle Girl and Her Grandmother 197

“I’m go ing out to do some storyknifing,” said the grand -

daughter. [Stroke over her.]

“Don’t go too far,” said her grandmother. [Stroke over her.]

The granddaughter left the house. She drew some pic -

tures in the snow near the house. Soon, that part of the

snow was cov ered with her tracks.

“I need some fresh snow,” said the grand daughter.

She walked down to the river and be cause it was frozen,

she could walk across it. There, on the other side of the

river, was the hill she had al ways wanted to climb.

“Grandmother says it is dan gerous, but I don’t think it is

so dan gerous,” she said to herself. “All I see is a snowy

hill.” [Stroke over her. Erase or move to next sheet.]

The girl climbed up the hill part way. She passed a

clump of fallen branches. Whirr! Whirr!

Some thing flew out of the branches.

“It is only some birds,” she said aloud. [Stroke over her.]

She con tinued climb ing the hill. Sud denly, a white

streak shot past her.

198 The Lit tle Girl and Her Grandmother

The Lit tle Girl and Her Grandmother 199

“It is only a snow shoe hare,” she said.

[Stroke over her. Erase or move to next sheet.]

She walked higher and higher un til she reached the very

top of the hill.

“Eeeoww!” A terrible howl filled the air. The girl did

not see a thing, but she jumped, turned around, ran

down the hill [make dots along path she takes] and ran

back to her home as fast as she could.

[Erase or move to next sheet.]

When she got to her home, grandmother was waiting

for her. Now what do you suppose it was that fright-

ened her on top of that hill?

A won derful book to use in con junction with this story is Tun draMouse by Megan McDonald, il lustrated by S. D. Schindler (New York:Orchard Books, 1997). Each page of this illustrated Yup’ik folk taleshows the action in or dinary pic tures, and in the margin of each il lus-tration are the de signs that children would use when “storyknifing” in snow or mud. Af ter telling the story once or twice, and showing thestoryknifing de signs, see if the audience can re member and reproduceany of the de signs. This could be done in chalk or with marker, or, ifyou and the group are ad venturous, in a fresh snow bank.

200 The Lit tle Girl and Her Grandmother

The Lit tle Girl and Her Grandmother 201

WHAT CAN HAPPEN IF YOU FALL INTO A HOLE

South Af rica

Each time I have vis ited school or li braries in var ious Af ricancountries in the past, I have asked both children and adults whetherthey knew any drawing stories. Only re cently, during the 29th Con-gress of the IBBY in Cape Town did I encounter a group of chil drenwho knew some draw ing sto ries that were not variants of the first twostories in this col lection. Lisa Nell was the first one to draw and tell methis little story.

203

There was once a man who went out for a walk.

He fell into a big hole.

He got two bumps on his head.

He con tinued walk ing, and fell into an even bigger hole.

He got two more bumps on his head.

Look at that! He turned into a bear!

204 What Can Hap pen If You Fall into a Hole

What Can Hap pen If You Fall into a Hole 205

HANDKERCHIEF STORIESFROM EUROPEANTRADITIONS

In tro duc tionAlmost forty years ago, I heard and saw my first hand kerchief

story. While vis iting friends and sharing stories in Mu nich, Ger many,a grand parent in a neighboring fam ily told a story using the mousefigure, shown later in this section. At the time, I thought it was a typeof story developed by that person to tell to his grand children. But aftertalking about it a bit, I re alized it was just one of a number of hand ker-chief “trick” stories that had been passed on in families.

After researching the hand kerchief a bit, I found in formation invar i ous his to ries of the hand ker chief that these sto ries, ac com pa niedby fig ures made with the hand kerchief, were com mon through out Eu-rope, but es pecially in Ger many and the Neth erlands. Usually, theyhad been learned in the last de cades of the nine teenth cen tury or theearly decades of the twentieth.

The children’s book au thor Alta Halverson Sey mour, when writingthe book Galewood Cross ing, which is partly based on her family’s his tory,cites a very un usual use for hand kerchief sto ries. In Chap ter Sixteen ofthat book, “Com pany for Thanksgiving,” she de scribes a sharing ofhandkerchief figures and stories with a group of Native Americans whohad come to the res cue of one of the daugh ters in the fam ily.

I searched in vain through folklore jour nals for ref erences to thistype of story, but could find none. I did not lo cate the ear lier itemsmentioned in the bib liography until much later. Cu riously, when Iwould ask older European per sons if they re membered such sto ries,many said they did, but could give me no examples. However, I didfind one el derly man in Ja pan who knew the mouse fig ure and couldtell a kind of story with it.

207

On a trip to Netherlands in 1985, I spoke at a Dutch Li brary As so-ci a tion meet ing about dif fer ent types of sto ry tell ing, and men tionedmy search for handkerchief stories. Quite a num ber of persons in theaudience came up af terward and volunteered to show me figures. Butit was Ce cile Beijk van Daal (who in vited me to her home nearEindhoven), and her many family mem bers, who were able to in tro-duce me to quite a few fig ures and bits of story. I worked these up inEnglish versions, adding to each little story as seemed appropriate

I be gan tell ing them all over the world. Subsequently, I trackeddown a num ber of printed references to hand kerchief figures, butmost of them did not give any story. The ear liest I lo cated, in terms ofpub li ca tion, was the Frikell book, ed ited by W. H. Cremer. This alsoseems to be the ear liest printed use of the term “hanky panky” to de -scribe any type of trick figure or magical trick. That book, which wasan am ateur ma gician’s hand book in the nineteenth cen tury, in cludesonly three hand kerchief “tricks” that one was supposed to flesh outwith a story.

The Ox ford Eng lish Dic tio nary ten tatively cites the term “hankypanky” as a de rivative of ho cus pocus and gives it these def initions:“legerdemain, trick ery, double dealing.” The first printed use of itwith this mean ing seems to have been in the magazine Punch in 1841.Since the hand kerchief figures were known well before that it seems to me much more likely that the term came about pre cisely be cause ofthese “tricky” figures.

By the end of the nine teenth cen tury, the term was def initely alsoassociated with these fig ures, and not just gen eral trickery. And thishas re mained true through out the twen tieth cen tury, as can be shownby the publication of at least three books with that term in the ti tle.Most of them were probably inspired by the ti tle of the Frikell book,which was re produced several times in the century.

It was in teresting to note that a re cent tele vision version of thenovel Doc tor Zhivago, showed a scene of Uncle Kolya tell ing the mouse story to lit tle Yuri Zhivago, af ter his adop tion following the death ofhis mother. So the fig ures are still be ing kept alive through modernmedia.

My per sonal preference is for keeping them alive by sharing themwith small groups of lis teners in family and school and li brary storyhours. They are easy to teach to parents and grandparents and makeideal fill ers to in sert be tween longer stories in family story hours.

I like to tell these by show ing the hand kerchief figure as it pro -gresses on a large piece of pale-colored felt, clipped or taped on an ea -sel. The hand kerchief sticks to the felt be cause of the nap. (One of tenhas to ex plain this to lit tle children, be cause they can’t figure out why

208 Hand ker chief Sto ries from Eu ro pean Tra di tions

the hand kerchief stays up with out glue or tape.) I use a typ ical man’shandkerchief, usually of the plain white variety.

My in tro duc tion al most al ways be gins thus:

Who knows what this is called? [Hold up hand kerchief.] Yes, it’scalled a hand kerchief. “Ker chief” means “a cover cloth,” so this is ahand cover cloth. Did you know there is a story hid ing in this hand -kerchief? A long, long time ago, when your great, great, great,great, great, great grand parents were grow ing up, they did n’t havetissues. They did n’t have hand kerchiefs ei ther. If they needed toblow their noses, do you know what they did? The just leaned over,blew their noses, and then wiped them with their fin gers, like this.[Demonstrate by mim ing this ac tion.] Yuck!

Only princes and prin cesses and peo ple of the court had hand ker-chiefs. And peo ple who acted in the the ater. But slowly, slowly, or di-nary peo ple be gan to use the hand kerchief. Moth ers and fa thers,grandmothers and grand fathers, wanted to in troduce its use to their children and grand children, so they could be more po lite. They in -vented many funny, tricky fig ures, and lit tle sto ries to go along withthe fig ures. This made the chil dren more ac cepting of the hand ker-chief. Many of the sto ries end up with the fig ure hid ing in a pocket,because that is what par ents wanted to have their chil dren re mem-ber: al ways have a hand kerchief hid ing in your pocket. Here is oneof those sto ries.

Hand ker chief Sto ries from Eu ro pean Tra di tions 209

THE PUZZLED PROFESSORS

Dutch

This story/rhyme was given to me by many per sons in the Neth -erlands, but I have used the version re membered by Ce cile Beijk’saunt. I give it here in Dutch first, for those who wish to say it in theoriginal, and then in my Eng lish translation. The fig ure can be foundin most of the books cited in the bib liography. This is per fect for au di-ence par ticipation. Make seven “pro fessor” figures out of seven hand -kerchiefs and have seven au dience mem bers put them on thefingertips of one hand and act out the story. Make the ba sic figures byknotting one corner of the hand kerchief, leaving about one inch of thecorner tip sticking up.

Dames en heren! Zeven Professoren!

Als heel de wereld stokvis was,

En elke boom en gas.

Als zee en meer en waterplas,

Eens louter haring was—

Waarmee lesten wij dan onze dorst?

Over dit gewichtig vraagstuk hebben zeven professoren zich

zeven dagen lang zitten te krabben achter hun oren.

La dies and gen tle men!

If the whole world was of dried fish,

And ev ery tree a gas.

If sea and lake and creek

Was only salted her ring—

With what would we quench our thirst?

About this im portant prob lem seven pro fessors have

spent seven long days scratch ing be hind their ears.

211

[Have the per sons hold ing the figures reach up with

their thumbs and pre tend to scratch be hind the knots.]

212 Hand ker chief Sto ries from Eu ro pean Tra di tions

RABBIT STORY

Eu ro pean

This can be done with either a hand kerchief or a white nap kin. ADutch librarian once told me that when, as a child, he refused to eateverything on his plate, his grandfather would say something likethis: “That’s too bad, then, because un less you clear your plate, I can’ttell you about the rabbit.” When his plate was cleaned of food, hisgrandfather would then tell him rabbit sto ries, while mak ing the fig -ure with his nap kin. Other Dutch per sons re ported that a version ofthis story was used to remind them to al ways have a handkerchief intheir pockets, in the days before tissues.

213

If you were to go not far from here, you would find a

small hill.

[Put hand kerchief, folded in half, on felt.]

If you would dig at the bot tom of that hill— [Fold over

about one inch at bottom.]

And dig some more—

[Fold over an other inch at bot tom.]

and dig again—

[Fold over one more inch at bot tom.]

you would find a soft, warm, snug lit tle den.

[Fold fig ure at mid point, mak ing sure the folds made

above are on out side of fig ure, and then flip the fig ure so

that the hill point is fac ing down and be comes the open-

ing to the den; wig gle a fin ger or two in the den when

you are saying the words.]

In that den there lived a soft

[Grasp the fig ure as shown, with the thumb holding

down the two ends, no more than three inch from the

tip ends, and the hill point fall ing loosely be hind the fin -

gers, mak ing sure the hilltop is pointing out, in the same

di rec tion as your fin ger tips.]

214 Rab bit Story

Rab bit Story 215

sweet

[Bring the hill part and the cuff from the back of the fin -

gers through the space be tween and mid dle fin ger and

ring fin ger and hold it in place with your thumb.]

dear

[Bring the hill point around and through the back of the

space where your in dex and mid dle fin ger en ter the

handkerchief, at the knuck les. Tuck the points in as

much as you can.]

sweet and cud dly

[Gently slide out your in dex and mid dle fingers from

the space they were in, mak ing sure you do not dis lodge

the hill tips you have just placed there and then in the

space where your in dex and mid dle fin gers once were,

tuck in the folded cuff part.]

white rab bit!

[Push in the folded cuff part as far as it will go into the

space once occupied by your in dex and mid dle fin gers

and separate the ears so they are clearly vis ible to the

au di ence.]

216 Rab bit Story

Rab bit Story 217

Now he was not an or dinary rab bit. Oh, no! He was apocket rabbit. Ev ery day he came hopping out of his den,looking for the pocket of a young lady or gen tleman.

[Imitate hop ping mo tion with rab bit fig ure and hop to -ward child in front row who has a clearly vis ible pocketsomewhere on his clothing.]

“Here is a fine young gen tleman,” said the rab bit. “Iwant to spend the day in his pocket.” And he hoppedinto that pocket as snug as can be and spent the daythere, with his ears sticking out.

[Place rabbit in clearly visible pocket of a young boy infront row, gently mo tioning him to stand up and facethe au dience, show ing rab bit with his ears stick ing outof the pocket.]

At night, rab bit hopped out and went back to his den.

[Take rab bit out of child’s pocket and motion for him tosit down.]

The next day rab bit went looking for an other pocketwhere he could spend the day. This time he found ayoung lady with a fine pocket. “I want to spend the daywith her,” said the rab bit, and he hopped into herpocket, leav ing his ears sticking out.

[Pop rab bit fig ure in pocket of girl child and make her standfacing au dience, again, with ears stick ing out of the pocket.]

Every day that rabbit went look ing for a new pocket tospend the day, un til one day, the young lady said sud -denly: “Oh, dear me! I have to sneeze!” She suddenlytook hold of rab bit, pulled him by the ears, and—Ka-choo! She had a hand kerchief!

[Pull rab bit by the ears un til he co mes apart and makes a hand ker chief.]

218 Rab bit Story

THE JUMPING MOUSE

Eu ro pean

Do not give away the ti tle of this story be fore telling it. It seems tobe the most prevalent fig ure used in hand kerchief sto ries. After I hadlearned it from various members of Ce cile Beijk’s fam ily, I found itmentioned in some early his tories of the hand kerchief, and in the ar ti-cle in St. Nich o las Mag a zine (1882), where the fig ure starts out the sameas is shown here, but ends up as a ball; an other version is given and co -mes out as a rab bit, but looking similar to the mouse shown in thisbook, rather than the rab bit head. The figure is de scribed in most ofthe later books and ar ticles, usually as a mouse. None of them give realstories associated with the figure.

I have also en countered this figure among Sunday School teach-ers, in certain parts of Ja pan, and among older im migrant populationsfrom Cen tral Europe whose de scendants live in the Mid west of theUnited States. It seems to have been told more by men than women,because they liked show ing how they could make the mouse figurecreep up the long sleeves of their suit jack ets, which had a nap that al -lowed them to create this ef fect. But the jump ing ac tion was al waysmentioned at the end.

My story is made up of bits and pieces of var ious performances ofthis story that I have observed over the years, plus my own per for-mances before hun dreds of groups throughout the world. Per haps the most un usual was in Thai land in 1993, when do ing storytelling work-shops for Somboon Singkamanen of Srinakharinwirot Uni ver sity.One of the many places she had ar ranged for me to tell sto ries was at akind of sum mer camp for boys. I took out my handkerchief, ready tobegin a bit of its his tory, and then tell this story, only to have morethan one hun dred boys in the au dience whip out their hand kerchiefs,ready to im itate me in learn ing how to do the figure so they could be -come future handkerchief storytellers!

219

[Begin by hav ing the hand kerchief spread out on a flat

table, or on a felt cloth hung up on an ea sel.]

I was asleep in my room one night, when down in my

kitchen I heard a noise. I went down to in vestigate, and

there on my kitchen ta ble I saw my handkerchief spread

out. I had not left it like that the night be fore. I was

ready to pick up my handkerchief, when I saw some -

thing that seemed to be mov ing un der it.

I wanted to see what that was, so I folded up one half of

the hand kerchief. I could see noth ing, but I could feel

something wiggling. It seemed to come from in side the

hand ker chief.

I am go ing to catch that wig gling thing, I said to my self.

I folded over one tip to ward the middle. Nothing there.

I folded over the other tip to ward the middle. Nothing

there.

But I could still feel the thing wiggling.

I started to fold up the bot tom of the bot tom of the

handkerchief. I folded once. [Fold up about 1 inch.]

I folded twice. [Fold up an other inch.]

I folded three times. [Fold up an other inch.]

220 The Jump ing Mouse

The Jump ing Mouse 221

Oh! I could re ally feel the thing wig gle! I de cided to

catch that wig gly thing by folding it tightly in side the

hand ker chief.

[Carefully flip entire figure over to other side.]

I folded one side tightly over the mid dle.

Then I folded the other side over the middle. [There

should be about one third in each part folded over; bot-

tom part is called the cuffed part.]

I tucked the top tips in tight.

[Fold the cuffed part up once, creating a kind of pocket

toward the front; tuck the up per tips down into this

pocket, as tightly as pos sible.]

Oh! I could re ally feel that wig gly thing, trying to get out. I

decided to roll it up tight so it could not get away. I rolled it.

[Turn fig ure in other direction. Place your thumbs into

left and right sides of the pocket cre ated on op posite

side of figure from where you tucked in the points.

Place your in dex and mid dle fin gers be hind the roll.

With a kind of upward roll ing mo tion of your thumbs,

turn the fig ure in side out.]

222 The Jump ing Mouse

The Jump ing Mouse 223

I rolled it tighter!

[Again, put thumbs in pocket, and re peat up ward roll -

ing mo tion, turning fig ure inside out.]

I rolled it still tighter!

[For third time, put thumbs on either side of pocket and

repeat upward mo tion, turning the fig ure in side out.]

Oh! What was that? A tail ap peared!

[Separate one of the two ends that now has shown up

and pull it out gently, just enough to im ply a tail.]

Then, on the other end, there ap peared a wee, whis -

kered head with two tiny ears and two beady eyes!

[Separate the tip on the other end of the fig ure, pulling it

out a bit fur ther.]

[Pull that sec ond tip apart and tie it in a knot, cre ating

the head and two tiny ears. This takes a bit of prac tice.]

It was a little white mouse!

224 The Jump ing Mouse

The Jump ing Mouse 225

The mouse looked at me. I looked at him. All of a sud-

den, he gave a jump!

[Throw mouse at one of the au dience mem bers.]

He scared me, just like that. But then, I picked him up

[take mouse back from audience mem ber] and I made

him my pet. [Stroke mouse along back. At this point,

show tricks you can make mouse do, such as crawl

along your shirt or jacket sleeve.]

I al ways kept mouse in my pocket, and then, if I sud-

denly needed to sneeze or blow my nose, I would just

take mouse out of my pocket, pull him by the tail—I had

a hand ker chief again.

226 The Jump ing Mouse

THE BABY SURPRISE

Eu ro pean and North Amer i can

This figure is one that seems to have sur vived the lon gest amongcertain pop ulations in North America. Al though it was probablybrought here by Central European im migrant families, it seems to befound among all groups, par ticularly those with strong SundaySchool tra ditions for young children. It was used to pacify the chil drenand keep them quiet during Sunday school or church ser vices. WhenCe cile Beijk was do ing this figure for me, she sang a Dutch song whilemaking it. Her daugh ter came in and reminisced on how much shehad loved it, when she was mildly ill and in bed for the day, hermother or some other person in the house hold would make her manysets of twin ba bies and spread them all around her on the bed.

I have in vented this story from fragments that I heard from manypersons who rec ognized the fig ure and told me how it was used intheir child hood. When do ing this for small groups of chil dren, I like tohave enough sets of “twin ba bies in the cradle” made in ad vance sothat I can give one to each child to rock for a few moments.

227

There was once a hus band and wife who wanted more

than any thing else to have a child. They waited and

waited, but no child came. They prayed to spe cial saints.

At last, the wife said: “Hus band, we are go ing to have a

child!”

What joy! How happy they were! They be gan to prepare

everything for that child. The hus band made a little cra -

dle out of wood.

The wife made small gar ments and knit ted soft

blan kets.

The hus band then carved a small wooden bowl and

spoon, and some toys. At last, ev erything seemed ready

for that child.

[While list ing all the preparations slowly, gently make

two rolls, one on each side. Each should be about the

size of a fat cigar, and they should meet in the mid dle.]

228 The Baby Sur prise

The Baby Sur prise 229

But when that baby ar rived, what a sur prise!

[Turn en tire fig ure over care fully, making sure that rolls

do not fall apart.]

It was n’t one baby that ar rived!

[While hold ing down bot tom tip with one hand, gently

pull top tip of the hand kerchief down with the other hand,

until it com pletely covers the bot tom part of figure.]

It was twins! And here they are, in their cra dle!

[Grasp en tire figure with hand and turn over. It is impor-

tant to do this carefully, so as not to have the “ba bies” in -

side fall apart. Then gently take hold of each tip and rock

the “cra dle” while show ing the “twins” in side.]

230 The Baby Sur prise

The Baby Sur prise 231

THE PEASANT’SCLEVER DAUGHTER

Eu ro pean

This is not a tra ditional hand kerchief story, but one in which Icombined an old rid dle story with the handkerchief, be cause itseemed very appropriate. You will need five handkerchiefs in all totell the story, or one handkerchief and four tri angle-shaped pieces ofwhite cloth. (Make sure they are the correct size so that they cre ate asquare when placed on each side of the knot ted hand kerchief.) If tell -ing it to a small group, sim ply spread the handkerchiefs on a ta ble. Ifyou are tell ing it to a larger group and you wish to show it on a felt-board, substitute the triangles of cloth and place them on each side ofthe knotted handkerchief figure.

I like to use this dur ing family story hours, or with par ent groups,as a pleas ant in troduction to a talk on the im portance of read ing.When tell ing this to chil dren in the middle grades, I usu ally ask if oneof the audience would come up and place the triangles on the hand -kerchief in such a way as to prove that the plot will be dou bled. I usu-ally ex plain that this is a riddle known since the time of Py thagoras,the an cient Greek philosopher and mathematician.

233

There was once a wealthy lord who had much land and

many an imals. He needed help and called a peasant

farmer to his manor house.

“I will give you a square plot of land for yourself, your

wife and any fam ily you have, if you come to work for

me” said the lord of the manor. [Hold up hand kerchief.]

“And if you do your work well, after some years I will

give you more land.”

The peas ant farmer agreed. He and his wife built a small

house on their square plot. Af ter a year, they had their

first child, a daughter. In her honor, they planted a tree

in one corner of their plot. [Make knot in one cor ner of

hand ker chief.]

In two more years, they had a sec ond child, a son. In his

honor they planted a sec ond tree, in a sec ond cor ner of

their plot. [Make a sec ond knot, in a sec ond cor ner of the

hand ker chief.]

After a few more years, they had a third child, an other

daughter. They planted a tree in her honor, in a third

corner of their plot. [Make a knot in an other cor ner of

the hand ker chief.]

234 The Peasant’s Clever Daughter

The Peasant’s Clever Daughter 235

“I am going to ask the lord of the manor for more land,”

said the peas ant farmer. He prom ised to give us more

land if we worked hard for him.” He went to the manor

house, but the ser vants who were guard ing the front

door would not let him in. He could not even present

his case to the lord of the manor.

After an other few years, the farmer and his wife had an -

other child, a sec ond son. In his honor they planted a

tree in the last cor ner of their square plot. They now had

a tree in each cor ner. [Make knot.]

“See here,” said the wife. “We work very hard for the

lord. You must go to him and insist that he give us more

land, or we shall not do any more work.”

The farmer went off to the manor, and this time, he was

fortunate that there were no servants guarding the door.

He walked right in and spoke to the lord.

“You promised me more land if we worked hard for

you. I have a growing fam ily. We need more land.”

“Ah, yes,” said the lord, and he took out his hand ker-

chief. “You are the one to whom I gave that square plot

of land. I notice that you now have four trees planted,

one in each cor ner. Why did you do that?”

“In honor of my four chil dren,” an swered the peas ant

farmer. “I planted one for each of them.”

Now the lord was a jolly fel low who liked tricks and

riddles. He took his hand kerchief, made a knot in each

corner, and held it out to the peas ant farmer, say ing:

“Yes, I no tice you do work hard, and you de serve more

236 The Peasant’s Clever Daughter

The Peasant’s Clever Daughter 237

land. I will give you more land, but I will let you double

the size of your plot, if you can an swer this three-part

riddle. You must keep your plot square, you must keep

the trees where they are, and the trees must stay at the

edge of your plot. Here, go home and bring me the an -

swer to morrow, in cloth.” The lord handed the hand ker-

chief to the peas ant farmer.

When he got home, his wife asked: “Did you get more

land?”

“I did, and I did n’t,” re plied the farmer. “We will defi-

nitely get more land, but if we can an swer the lord’s rid -

dle, we can dou ble the size of our plot.”

“Give me the riddle,” said his wife. “I am very good at

rid dles.”

The peas ant held up the hand kerchief with the four

knots.

“This is our plot. The knots are our trees. The lord says

we can dou ble our plot, if we keep it square, if we keep

the trees where they are, and if we keep the trees at the

edge of our plot. I have not been able to fig ure it out,”

said the farmer.

His wife took the hand kerchief in her hands and pon -

dered the problem, but she could not find the an swer to

the three-part rid dle.

Just then, their oldest daugh ter came home and she

stepped for ward, say ing, “Fa ther, I know the an swer.”

“You do! Tell me, quickly,” said her fa ther.

238 The Peasant’s Clever Daughter

The Peasant’s Clever Daughter 239

The daughter took the handkerchief from her fa ther’s

hands, and went in search of more cloths from the

kitchen. She folded them care fully and then said: “You

must ask for a piece of land shaped like this on the north

side of our plot. [Spread out handkerchief with knots

and place an other hand kerchief, folded three times in

triangle shape, at top. Or, if us ing a felt board, place a

cloth cut in ap propriate tri angle shape and size at top.]

Then you must ask for a piece of land of the same size

and shape on the east side of our plot. [Place a hand ker-

chief or cloth of same tri angle size on right side of figure.]

Then ask for a piece of land of the same size and shape

to the west of our plot. [Place still an other hand kerchief

or cloth, of same triangle size, on left side of fig ure.]

Finally, ask for a piece of land of the same size and

shape to the south of our plot. [Place last hand kerchief

or cloth of same tri angle size at bot tom of figure.]

As you see, the plot stays square, the trees stay where

they are, and they re main at the edge of our plot.”

“Daughter, I am a dummkopf. How did you know those

answers?” asked her fa ther.

“No, fa ther, you are not a dummkopf, be cause you al -

lowed me to go to school, and I read the an swer to those

riddles in a book,” an swered the daugh ter.

And that is how the peasant and his fam ily doubled

their plot of land overnight, all be cause their daugh ter

had learned to read. [To prove a doubling of the plot,

place tri angles with tips in the center.]

240 The Peasant’s Clever Daughter

The Peasant’s Clever Daughter 241

SOURCES OF THEDRAWING STORIES

The Black CatThis is my own version, but it is based mostly on the two versions

published in the Jour nal of Amer i can Folk lore, 1897, p. 80 and p. 322.They had been submitted to the journal by Maud G. Early and Ida C.Craddock, re spectively. Both re membered them from childhood.Charles Ludwidge Dodgson’s version appears in the ap pendix of TheDiaries of Lewis Carroll, vol. 2, ed ited by Roger Lancelyn Green. It iscalled “Mr. T and Mr. C.” For nu merous ver sions from the Nordiccountries, plus excellent source notes (in Swed ish), see the two vol-umes compiled by Per Gustavsson.

The Wolves, the Goats and the KidsThis is based on an oral version of the German children’s book

writer Fritz Muhlenweg and a print version pointed out later to me bythe writer Hans Baumann. While vis iting the Baumann home in 1959,I hap pened to do the draw ing story of “The Black Cat” for the littledaughter in the house, Veronica. Herr Baumann men tioned that hisfriend, Fritz Muhlenweg, au thor of the mar velous Big Ti ger and Chris-tian, knew some of this type of story, from his ex tensive travels inMongolia and China. He later sent me the Muhlenweg ver sion in arough sketch; still later, he sent me the version printed in Wal terHeissig’s Mongolische Volksmarchen, published in Germany in 1963.

The Smart ShopperI first heard this from a Romanian delegate to an IBBY Con gress,

whose name, sadly, I forgot to note. Some years later, I heard a very

243

sim i lar ver sion from Angela Evdoxiadis of To ronto, whose par entagewas Greek and Armenian. I sub sequently dis covered a sim ilar versionin Al bania, when vis iting schools and li braries with Mrs. ShpresaVreto in 1994.

The Smart Shopper—Swiss and Ger man Ver sionsThis version is slightly adapted from one of two figures given in

the de light ful col lec tion Falten und Spielen, com piled by Susanne-Stocklin Meier, one of a se ries of handbooks she com piled for par entsand early child hood care givers, on the importance of traditional playin the young child’s life. I also came upon a version at the In ternationalYouth Li brary in Munich, Ger many. Thanks to the late ElisabethWaldman for pointing these out to me in 1980.

What Do You Think You Are?A fig ure for this is given in Falten und Spielen (see pre vious en try)

but no real story. I invented this version af ter a com ment by a par tici-pant in a storytelling sem inar at the In ternational Youth Li brary inMunich, who told me it was a com mon trick to play on their youngersiblings who were just learning to print the alphabet.

The KeyThis is my adapted ver sion of a story first told to me by Knud

Eigil Hauberg-Tychsen at an IBBY Con ference in Den mark in the1970s. Per Gustavsson gives a some what dif ferent ver sion in his book,Ritsagor.

Per’s Trousers; Light BulbThe first is from Ritsagor and the sec ond from Fler Ritsagor, both

by Per Gustavsson, and used with his per mission. The trans lations aremy own. I changed slightly the draw ing in “Per’s Trousers,” makingthe homes of Per and his friend Lisa into pockets. In this way, the orig-inal sen tences seemed to make more sense to me.

Katy Horn ing’s ver sion of the light bulb fig ure I heard dur ing anevening of hi larity at the home of Ginny Moore Kruse in Madison,Wis con sin.

244 Sources of the Draw ing Sto ries

How to Get Rid of Mos quitosI learned this from an oral tell ing by Irene Kulman Santa Cruz, a

librarian and teacher from Fernando de la Mora, Par aguay. I adaptedit slightly as I made my own trans lation.

Little Cir cle, Big Cir cleAt a work shop for the Kelompok Pencinta Bacaan Anak in In do-

nesia, I ex changed sto ries with a num ber of writ ers and sto rytellers.All of the par ticipants seemed to know a ver sion of this drawing story, but Mrs. Toety Maklis, one of In donesia’s best-known children’s bookwriters, agreed to write it down for me, and to get a teacher to sing iton tape. This she did, and soon I was listening to Ika Sri Mustika sing -ing it in Bahasa In donesia and then in Eng lish. The Bahasa pronuncia-tion is as fol lows: a = ah; e = uh; i = ee; u = oo; c = ch; s = ss as in “miss.”

Lingkaran kecil, lingkaran kecil, lingkaran besar.

Lingkaran kecil, lingkaran kecil, lingkaran besar.

Diberi pisang, diberi pisang, diberi pisang.

Lingkaran kecil, lingkaran kecil, melingkar, lingkar.

Enam, enam; tiga bulut enam. Enam, enam, diberi sudut.

The notes for the verses are ap proximately as follows:

do re mi mi do, do re mi mi do, mi mi fa mi re

si do re re si, si do re re si, sol fa mi re do.

do re mi mi do, do re mi mi do, mi mi fa mi re

si do re re si, si do re re si, sol fa mi re do

do mi, do mi; do mi fa mi re do; si re, si re;sol fa mi re do

My ver sion is only slightly changed from that ver sion. I added anextra “big” to the third lines of the sec ond and third verses, and in thethird line of verse four, I added “up and around” to “coiling.” Inchanting this, I usually say, “six times six; that makes thirty-six,” eventhough the original only implies it. This is so similar to Jap anese ekakiuta that I feel sure it came from that coun try and was adapted to aBahasa tune and words.

Sources of the Draw ing Sto ries 245

Good Night!; Right An swer, Wrong An swerThe Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, an in stitute in Kuala Lumpur

charged with researching, publishing, and promoting the languageand literature of Ma laysian Bahasa (Malay), has been exploring forsome years the means to keep this language rich and alive among thechildren and youth of Ma laysia. They be gan ex perimenting with vari-ous means of in cor po rat ing sto ry tell ing into the cur ric u lum. To thisend, they held a workshop in Port Dick son, where I was in vited toshare what I could about storytelling in many parts of the world. Dur-ing one session, I showed drawing stories from a num ber of cul tures.At the end of that ses sion, Ahmed Ghulam Jamaludin of Kota Baru,Kelantan, stepped forward. With a twin kle in his eye he pre sentedthese two stories, first in Bahasa Malaysia and then in rough Eng lish.Many of the other participants said they also knew the sto ries, but hisversions were the most humorous. I have adapted them only slightly.

The Doh BirdThis was given to me by my longtime friend Bandana Sen, librar-

ian at the American In ternational School, New Delhi. She is Ben gali,and a lively sto ryteller, having en tertained and in spired a whole gen -eration of primary school stu dents there. The end ing is my invention.She showed other sto ries based on Ben gali letters, but they were notvery translatable.

How Man and Woman Found Their Place in the WorldThis is loosely based on sev eral of the clever pic ture stories found

in Vol ume 1 of Fun with Chinese Char acters. This se ries belongs in everylibrary. It has very clear di agrams, en abling even the rank beginner tostart drawing simple Chinese characters. Plus, it is tre mendous fun tostudy the cartoonlike se quences and learn to ap preciate a bit ofChinese humor.

I first picked up these volumes in Sin gapore in 1980 and havebeen us ing them ever since. The story has evolved over the years, andthis version was per fected in the nu merous schools I visited in Singa-pore during sev eral visits for the pur pose of at tending the In terna-tional Fes tival of Sto rytelling they have been holding each November.

246 Sources of the Draw ing Sto ries

The Ab sent-Minded JudgeOn a visit to Ko rea in 1972, I spent time in the Folklore Collection

at Se oul National University and learned about some of the types ofstorytelling com mon in Ko rea, past and pres ent. Among the sto ries Iwas shown were draw ing sto ries, many of them based on Chi nesecharacters. The li brarian there re ferred me to a booklet called A Ko reanNight’s En ter tain ment, which I picked up and which in cludes a numberof draw ing sto ries. This is slightly adapted from a lon ger story in thatcollection. The other drawing stories are full of sexual in nuendo, and Ioccasionally use them with adult audiences.

Ekaki Uta

All of the Japanese drawing stories given in this col lection arebased on trans lations made for me by Shigeo Watanabe and SachikoSaionji Watanabe (no re lation). Some of them use versions I gleanedwhile ob serving children do ing drawing stories, no tably on my vis itsto var ious schools and li braries, ar ranged by HOLP Pub lish ers. Thesetook place in all parts of Ja pan in 1974, 1979, and 1986, and I was ac-com pa nied by Sachiko and the late Mitsue Ishitake.

Shigeo helped me with translations for two to three versions ofeach story, found in Iwai, Kako, Koizumi, or Sugahara (see Bib li og ra-phy). My ver sions com bine information found in all the ver sions. Oc -casionally, I added a phrase or detail if it seemed to fit the orig inal punor idea be hind the drawing.

For those wish ing to sing or chant the refrains most commonlyused with each picture se quence, I rec ommend get ting a copy of theIwai col lection, which is filled with ver sions of the tunes. It is in Japa-nese, of course, but the mel odies can be in terpreted by any one whoreads music.

The Rainbow SnakeI first learned about sand sto rytelling from the late Jack Da vis,

who told me about many Australian Ab origine traditions of storytell-ing and to whom I owe the deepest debt of gratitude. I was so im-pressed with my first experience of such sto rytelling, I de termined touse it in my ses sions in the United States and other countries. Usingsome of the Wal biri fig ures from Nancy Munn’s book (see Bib liogra-phy), I adapted them to a version of this story I had learned fromRoland Robinson. Over the years I have simplified the draw ings

Sources of the Draw ing Sto ries 247

somewhat, due to the constraints of showing this in a plastic sandboxon an overhead projector. The version given here I have told so manytimes, it has be come one of my signature sto ries. I added the small en -vironmental ending to the story, because it seems so appropriate.

Little Boy and EmuI heard this from a child at a storytelling session in the Al ice

Springs Pub lic Li brary. I later found a ver sion in “Thundering Geckoand Emu” by A. C. Van der Leeden (see Bib liography). My ver sion is a com bi na tion of those two.

The Little Girl and Her GrandmotherThis is freely adapted from the col lection assembled by Helen T.

and Wendell H. Oswalt.

What Can Hap pen If You Fall into a HoleLisa Nell was among a group of children I met at a joint meet ing

of IBBY and ASSITEJ (In ter na tional Chil dren’s The ater As so ci a tion),held in Cape Town on September 4, 2004. We shared some drawingstories, and the only one with which I was not fa miliar was this shortone, which Lisa drew for me on a scrap of pa per I had in my brief case.

248 Sources of the Draw ing Sto ries

SOURCES OF THEHANDKERCHIEF STORIES

Almost all of the fig ures in these sto ries I first learned from Ce cileBeijk van Daal of Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and mem bers of herfamily and friends, whom she asked to help me in my re constructionof handkerchief stories. The stories are re constructions of fragmentspieced to gether from many in formants who told me how their par -ents, grand parents, or other relatives used the fig ures in tell ing themstories. The ex ception is the figure and the story “The Peas ant’s CleverDaughter.” I adapted this from a riddle story I used to tell during myNew York Pub lic Li brary storytelling days in the early 1960s. I havebeen un able to trace my original source, but I re call that it was aprinted pamphlet in the research collection of the main library.

My thanks to Nancy Gloe, school li brarian in Mad ison, Wis con-sin, for pointing out the Halverson book to me. The de scription there,telling how a pioneer fam ily used the ba bies in the cradle hand ker-chief figure to en tertain a group of Na tive Americans helped me to ex-pand the story into the ver sion I give in this book.

249

BIBLIOGRAPHY FORDRAWING STORIES

Ager, Lynn Price. “Storyknifing: An Alaskan Es kimo Girls” Game.”Journal of the Folk lore In stitute (The Hague) 11, no. 3 (1975): 187–98.

Allen, Lou ise A. Time Be fore Morn ing: Art and Myth of the Aus tralian Ab -orig i nes. New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1975.

An, Tzu-cheh. Cracking the Chinese Puz zles. Vol. 1. Hong Kong:Stockflows, 1982.

Berndt, Ron ald M., and Catherine J. The World of the First Aus tralians.Syd ney: Ure Smith, 1965.

Coulmas, Florian. The Writing Systems of the World. Ox ford: Blackwell,1989.

Craddock, Ida C. “The Black Cat” and “The Wild Fowl.” Jour nal ofAmer i can Folk lore (1987): 322–3.

Da vis, Jack. “Story Tra di tions in Aus tra lian Ab orig i nal Cul tures.” In:Through Folk lore to Lit er a ture, ed ited by Maurice Saxby. Syd ney:IBBY Australia (1979): 133–50.

DeFrancis, John. Visible Speech: The Di verse One ness of Writ ing Systems.Ho no lulu: Uni ver sity of Ha waii Press, 1989.

Dinesen, Isak. Out of Af rica. New York, Ran dom House, 1938.

Druce, Arden. Chalk Talk Sto ries. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press,1993.

Early, Maud G. “The Tale of the Wild Cat.” Jour nal of Amer i can Folk lore,1897, p. 80.

Elkin, Adolphus P. and Catherine J., and Ron ald M. Berndt. Art inArnheim Land. Chi cago: Uni versity of Chi cago Press, 1950.

Folk and Tra ditional Mu sic of Asia for Chil dren, Vol. 1 (LP disc and book-let). To kyo: Asian Cultural Cen ter for UNESCO, 1975.

251

Frikell, Wiljalba, et al. Hanky Panky: A Book of Con juring Tricks, ed itedby W. H. Cremer. Lon don: J. C. Hotten, 1872.

Fun with Chinese Char acters: The Straits Times Col lection. Car toons byTan Huay Peng. Singapore: Fed eral Pub lications, vol. 1, 1980; vol.2, 1982.

Gustavsson, Per. Ritsagor. Il lus trated by Boel Werner. Stockholm:Alfabeta, 1995.

———. Fler Ritsagor. Il lus trated by Boel Werner. Stockholm: Alfabeta,2000.

Heissig, Wal ter, ed. and trans. Mongolische Volksmärchen. Dusseldorf:E. Diedrichs, 1963.

Hoffmann, F. R. Grundzüge einer Geschichte des Bilderräthsels. Berlin:Rud. Hoffmann Verlag, 1869.

Iwai, Masahiro. Warabeuta—Sono Densho to Sozo (Nurs ery Rhymes—Tra di tion and Cre ation). To kyo: Ongakunotomosha, 1987.

Koizumi, Fumio. Kodomo no Asobi to Uta (Chil dren’s Drawing Play).To kyo: Soshisha, 1986.

The Ko rean Night’s En ter tain ment (Comic Sto ries), ed ited by Tae-HungHa. Seoul: Yonsei Uni versity Press, 1970.

Malbunka, Mary. When I Was Little, Like You. Il lustrated by the au thor.Crow’s Nest, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 2003.

Mallett, Jerry J., and Marian R. Bartch. Stories to Draw. Hagerstown,Md.: Freline, 1982.

Mc Don ald, Megan. Tundra Mouse: A Storyknife Tale. Il lustrated by S. D. Schindler. New York: Or chard Books, 1997.

Munn, Nancy D. Wal biri Ico nog ra phy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cor nell UniversityPress, 1973.

Nakanishi, Akira. Writing Systems of the World: Al phabets, Syllabaries,Pictograms. Rutl and, Vt.: C. E. Tuttle, 1990.

Oldfield, Mar ga ret. Tell and Draw Sto ries. Min ne ap o lis, Minn.: Cre-ative Storytime Press, 1963.

———. More Tell and Draw Sto ries. Min ne ap o lis, Minn.: Cre ativeStorytime, 1969.

———. Lots More Tell and Draw Sto ries. Min ne ap o lis, Minn.: Cre ativeStorytime, 1973.

Oswalt, Wendell H., and Helen T. Oswalt. “Tra di tional StoryknifeTales of Yuk Girls.” Pro ceed ings of the Amer i can Philo soph i cal So ci -ety 108, no. 4, (1964): 310–36.

252 Bib li og ra phy for Draw ing Sto ries

Parker, K. Langloh. Woggheeguy: Aus tra lian Ab orig i nal Leg ends.Adelaide: F. W. Preece, 1930.

Pellowski, Anne. The Story Vine. New York: Macmillan, 1984.

———. The World of Sto rytelling. Ex panded and re vised ed. New York : H. W. Wilson, 1990.

Pflomm, Phyllis Noe. Chalk in Hand: The Draw and Tell Book. Metuchen,N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1986.

Rob in son, Roland. Legend and Dream ing. Syd ney: Ed wards and Shaw,1952.

Stocklin-Meier, Susanne. Falten und Spielen. Pho tos by NiggiBrauning. Zürich: Orell Füssli Verlag, 1977.

———. Komm Wir Spielen. Pho tos by Niggi Brauning. Zürich: OrellFüssli Verlag, 1986.

———. Kranksein und Spielen. Pho tos by Andreas Wolfensberger.Zürich: Orell Füssli Verlag, 1982.

———. Spielen und Sprechen. Pho tos by Niggi Brauning. Zürich: OrellFüssli Verlag, 1975.

Sugahara, Michihiko. Asobo: Ekaki Asobi (Draw ing Play). To kyo:Iseisha, 1986.

Tillhagen, Carl-Herman. Svenska Folkelekar och Dansar. Stock holm:Bokverk, 1949.

Van der Leeden, J. C. “Thundering Gecko and Emu.” In Aus tra lian Ab-orig i nal My thol ogy: Es says in Hon our of W. E. H. Stanner; ed ited byby L. R. Hiatt. Canberra: Aus tralian Institute of Ab originalStudies, 1975.

Visser-Bakker, Jant, and Anneke Buizer-Visser. Fan Tryntsjemuoi enDuotsjemuoi. Ljouwert (Leeuwarden): Koperative Utjowerij, 1978.

———. Van Trientjemoei en Dientjemoei. Translated from the Friesianinto Dutch by Wieke Veenstra. Baarn: Free Spirit Productions,1981.

Wallace, Phyl, and Noel Wallace. “Milpatjunanyi, the Story Game.” In Children of the Desert. Melbourne: Thomas Nelson, 1968, 24–6.

With ers, Carl. The Tale of a Black Cat. Il lustrated by Alan Cober. NewYork: Holt, Rinehart, 1966.

Yoshida, Teiichi. Bo Ga Ippon Attatosa. Il lus trated by YoshitakaShinohara. To kyo: Rakuda, 1992.

———. Happa no Naka no Happappa. Il lus trated by YoshitakaShinohara. To kyo: Rakuda, 1991.

Bib li og ra phy for Draw ing Sto ries 253

———. Tamago ga Hitotsu Odango Futatsu. Il lus trated by YoshitakaShinohara. To kyo: Rakuda, 1993.

Zelinsky, Paul. The Maid and the Mouse and the Odd-Shaped House. NewYork: Dodd, Mead, 1981.

254 Bib li og ra phy for Draw ing Sto ries

BIBLIOGRAPHY FORHANDKERCHIEF STORIES

Beard, Dan iel C. “What Can Be Made with a Handkerchief.” In St.Nich o las Mag a zine, 9, pt. 2 (Oct. 1882): 972–6.

Braun-Ronsdorf, Margarete. The His tory of the Hand kerchief. Leigh-on-Sea, Eng land: F. Lewis, 1961.

Burns, Eliz a beth. Hanky Panky. Aptos, Ca lif.: E. Burns, 1986.

Frikell, Wiljalba, et al. Hanky Panky; a Book of Con juring Tricks, ed itedby W. H. Cremer. Lon don: J. C. Hotten, 1872.

Gustafson, Helen. Hanky Panky: An In timate His tory of the Handkerchief.Photos by Jon athan Ches ter. Berke ley, Ca lif.: Ten Speed Press,2002

Jack son, Paul. Hanky Panky; 17 Models to Make with the Hand kerchief inYour Pocket. North Ryde, NSW, Aus tra lia: An gus and Rob ert son,1990.

Jacobs, Fran ces. Out of a Handkerchief. New York: Lothrop, 1942.

Leske, Ma rie. Illustriertes Spielbuch für Mädchen. Leip zig: Otto Spamer,1871.

Pellowski, Anne. The Fam ily Sto ry tell ing Hand book. New York:Macmillan, 1987.

Pe ters-Holger, Katherina. Das Taschentuch; eine theatergeschichtlicheStudie. Emsdetten, Westfalen: Verlag Lechte, 1961.

Sey mour, Alta Halverson. Galewood Cross ing. Phil a del phia: West min-ster, 1946.

Taschentuch in Tracht und Brauch; Volkskunde, Fakten und Analysen.Wien: Verein für Volkskunde, 1972.

Vance, El ea nor Gra ham. The Ev ery thing Book. Il lus trated by Trina S.Hyman. New York: Golden Press, 1974.

255

In dex

Alphabet, 37–41, 87–89, 95

Af rica, 19

Andersen, Hans Christian, 6

Ar me nia, 25

Asian Cul tural Cen ter for

UNESCO, 2

Aus tra lia, 167–91

Aus tra lian Ab orig ine, 2, 167–91

Ba bies, 92–94, 227–31

Badger, 163–6

Badger and the Magic Fan, 166

Ban gla desh, 87–89

Base ball, 139–44

Baumann Family, 243

Beijk, Ce cile, 208, 219, 227, 249

Bench singer, 5

Ben gali, 87–89

Bersoe, Vilhelm, 62

Beskow, Elsa, 49

Big Ti ger and Christian, 243

Birds, 6, 19–24, 87–89

Bull dog, 63–67

Carroll, Lewis, 6, 9, 243

Cas tle, 43–47

Cats, 9–17

Cat er pil lar, 153–55

Chalk board, 8, 167

Cheer leader, 139–44

China, 3, 91–94

Chinese script, 3–4, 7, 91–94, 95

Christ mas, 57–62, 157–61

Ci cada, 145–47

Coins, 81

Craddock, Ida C., 243

Cremer, W. H., 208

Davis, Jack, 167, 247

DeFrancis, John, 3

Denmark, 6, 19, 25, 62

Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 246

Diaries of Lewis Carroll, 243

Dinesen, Isak, 19

Doc tor Zhivago, 208

Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge. See

Carroll, Lewis

Dogs, 63–67

Ducks, 125–27

Early, Maud G., 243

Edo pe riod, Japan, 4

Egypt, 3

Ekaki uta, 1, 4–5, 98–166, 247

Emu, 185–91

Europe, 6, 19, 25, 219, 227

Evdoxiadis, Angela, 244

Face, 99–101, 103–5

Farm ers, 119–23, 233–41

Fields, 91–94

Fish, 119–123

Flute, 57–62

Food, 25-35

Friesian, 9

Frikell, Wiljalba, 5, 208

Frogs, 149–51

Fun with Chinese Char acters, 246

257

Galewood Cross ing, 207

Ge om e try, 233–41

Ger many, 37–41, 207

Gifts, 135

Girls, 99–101, 111–13

Gloe, Nancy, 249

Goats, 19–24

Grand fa ther, 103–5

Grand mother, 193–201

Greece, 25

Green, Roger L., 243

Gustavsson, Per, 25, 49–61,

243–244

Hand ker chief sto ries, 207–41

Hangul, 95

Hanky Panky, 209

Harold and the Purple Crayon, 1

Hoban, Rus sell and Lillian, 166

Holzer, Jane H., 9

Horning, Katy, 57, 244

India, 5, 87–89

In do ne sia, 5, 25, 69–73, 245

Ishitake, Mitsue, 1, 247

Iwai, Masahiro, 4, 145

Jamaludin, Ahmed Ghulam, 246

Japan, 4, 75, 98–166, 207, 219

John son, Crockett, 1

Johnston, Tony, 166

Jour nal of Amer i can Folk lore, 9,

243

Judges, 95-97

Kako, Satoshi, 2

Kanji, 4, 103

Kaszubian re gion, Po land, 5

Kenya, 19, 24

Key, 43–47

Key to the Kingdom, 46

Korea, 4, 95–97, 247

Ko rean Nights’ En ter tain ment, 4,

247

Kraus, Rob ert, 138

Light bulb, 57–62

Luritja, 168

Maestro, Betsy, 46

Maid and the Mouse and the

Odd-Shaped House, 9

Maklis, Toety, 245

Ma lay sia, 5, 75–79, 81–85

Malbunka, Mary, 168

Mar bles, 149–51

Matsui, Tadashi, 2

Matsuoka, Kiyoko, 2

Mc Don ald, Megan, 200

Milton the Early Riser, 138

Mon go lia, 19–24

Mongolische Volksmarchen, 243

Mon keys, 69–73, 107–9

Mos qui tos, 63–67

Mouse, 200, 219–26

Muhlenweg, Fritz, 243

Munn, Nancy, 166, 247

Mu sic, 57–62, 98, 145

Mustika, Ika Sri, 245

Names, 95–97

Napaskiak, 2–3, 193–201

Nell, Lisa, 248

Netherlands, 6, 9, 207–8, 211–18

New York Pub lic Library, 1, 249

Nihon Densho No Asobi Tokuman,

2

Nisse, 57–62

The Nisse from Timsgaard, 62

Numbers, 4, 70–73, 75–79, 81–85,

87–89, 98, 103, 129–34,

139–44

Oc to pus, 115–17

Oldfield, Mar ga ret, 7

Olym pics, 144

On the Banks of Plum Creek, 1, 19

Out of Af rica, 19

258 In dex

Pan das, 135–38

Par a guay, 7, 63–67

Peace, 92–94

Pelle’s New Suit, 49

Picture sheets, 5

Pigs, 37–41, 69–73, 129–34

Po land, 5

Pro fes sors, 211–12

Py thag o ras, 233

Rab bits, 213–19

Rain, 115–17, 129–34

Rainbow Snake, 169–83

Ramadan, 75

Re bus, 5

Ritsagor, 25, 243

Rob in son, Roland, 247

Ro ma nia, 243

Sand stories, 2, 167–91

Santa Claus, 157–61

Santa Cruz, Irene K., 245

Seymour, Alta H., 207

Sin ga pore, 246

Singkamanen, Somboon, 219

Snakes, 169–83

So ci ety of Ko rean Oral Lit er a ture,

95

South Africa, 203–5

South America, 6

Stocklin-Meier, Susanne, 244

The Story Vine, 107, 167

Storyknifing, 2, 193–201

Sumeria, 3

Sweden, 6, 25, 49–62

Swit zer land, 25, 31–35, 37–41

Tale of a Black Cat, 1

Teach ers, 81–85

Tea pot, 111–13

Teddy Bear, 69–73, 75–79

Thai land, 219

Timor, East, 245

Tomten, 62

Trou sers, 49–55

Twins, 227–31

Tun dra Mouse, 200

Vis i ble Speech, 3

Visser-Bakker, Jant, 9

Wal biri, 168

Watanabe, Sachiko, 1, 98, 247

Watanabe, Shigeo, 1, 98, 247

When I Was Lit tle Like You, 168

Wilder, Laura Ingalls, 1, 6, 19

Wis con sin, 163

Withers, Carl, 1

Wolves, 19–24

World of Sto ry tell ing, 5

Yuk, 193–201

Yukaghir, 3

Yup’ik, 2–3, 200

Zelinsky, Paul, 9

In dex 259

About the Author

ANNE PELLOWSKI a for mer li brarian from New York Public Li -brary, and renowned storyteller and author, has published such ti tlesas The Story Vine, World of Chil dren’s Sto ries, Fam ily Sto ry tell ing Hand-book, and others. She performs and con ducts storytelling workshopsaround the world. Draw ing sto ries are among those most re questedby li brar i ans and teach ers.