Down by the Banks (of the Hanky Panky)

Title: Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky

General Information about Item:

  • Children’s Lore, Clap Game
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Anonymous
  • Date Collected: 10-26-20
  • Location Collected at: Dartmouth College Hanover, NH

Informant Data:

  • Anonymous, 22, is a female Dartmouth student in the class of 2021. She was born in New Orleans, LA and raised in the suburbs of Las Vegas, NV between ages 6 and 14, when she left for boarding high school at Phillips Exeter Academy. Her hobbies include dance, Dungeons & Dragons, and her gender inclusive Greek house Phi Tau.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Children’s hand games are often passed on to younger kids by older kids who teach the hand motions and song rhythms. 
  • Social Context: Children are socialized by parents, guardians, and peers to enjoy and participate in competitive games against one another throughout childhood. Hand clap rhythm games are most often played by young girls. Anonymous learned how to play this game in class or in summer camp. Likely, the game was introduced by a teacher or other supervisory figure during a break in the school or camp day. She would play this game in those break times and eventually recess as well.

Item:

  • Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky is a clap game with simple instructions. Participants arrange themselves in a circle with one hand in palm up above the palm of one person on their side and the other hand palm up beneath the other person to their side’s palm. The game’s song is sang to a specific rhythm as participants clap their hand on the palm in their other hand. This clap is passed around the circle until the song ends, where the person who the song ended on must leave the circle. Circle closes in and the song and clapping starts again.

 

Transcript:

  • “Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky is a bunch of kids in a circle, with one hand palm-up on top of one person’s and their other hand beneath the other person’s palm on their side. Someone sings the song, and while it’s being sung, kids pass a slap around by clapping their palm-up top hand into the next person’s palm-up hand. When the song starts to end, people start to get stressed because you don’t want the song to end when you have the clap. So in the last few syllables, the clap gets passed super fast. If it ends on you, you leave the circle, everyone scoots in a bit, and it repeats until there’s only 2 people left. The last two grab hands in a handshake and push that handshake back and forth to the song. The person who had it pushed to them when the song ends loses. It’s messy because the last instant is just people trying to push the other with brute strength, and it’s kinda the strongest kid who wins.”
  • “Apparently there are a lot of different versions but the one I know, and is definitely Southern influenced, goes:

Down by the banks of the Hanky Panky

Where the bull frog jumps from bank to bank,

It’s like EEPs, OPPS, soda pops

Then he hit the water and it went KERPLOP!”

Informant’s Comments:

  • Kids panic pass the clap so fast near the end of the song, that it can be really hard to tell who it actually ended on.

Collector’s Comments:

  • Having an observer sing the song and determine who is out probably works best so none of the participants are distracted.

Collector’s Name: Kyland Narcisse

Dartmouth College

RUSS 13 Slavic Folklore: Vampires, Witches, and Firebirds

Professors Mikhail Gronas and Valentina Apresjan

FALL 2020

Tags/Keywords:

  • Clap game
  • Children’s Folklore