Fingerhakeln

Title: Fingerhakeln

General Information about Item:

Informant Data:

Nicolay Ostrau is a Professor and Senior Lecturer in Dartmouth’s department of German studies. His home region is Northern Germany. He heard of this drinking game through his many experiences with German culture, although he never partook in the game itself.

Contextual Data:

During Oktoberfest, Germans have large, social parties where they drink a lot of beer and have fun with friends and family. During the festivities, they often play games, such as the one described here by the informant.

Item:

“We have the Oktoberfest culture of course where there are many games being played in the in the beer tents that… Don’t necessarily depend on alcohol, but I think they go together with alcohol. I think people engage more once they have had two or three beers and one is Fingerhalten. You’re you’re familiar with arm wrestling, right? So Fingerhalten is similar, so you take your [pinky] fingers and link them together and you try to pull your opponent across the table with your finger. Which of course you can imagine leads to dislocated fingers. Sometimes it leads to broken fingers but this is really a so-called drinking game that we had for a long time. And this is mainly played in Bavaria which goes with beer drinking culture that was there.”

Collector’s Comments:

This was quite the interesting story. I don’t quite get the appeal of ripping one another’s fingers out of their sockets, but I do kind of understand the appeal of having a macho-type tug of war with someone. Perhaps the popularity of this game is due to the satisfaction one gains from being stronger than the opponent/better able to pull them across the table.

Collector’s Name: Michael Steel

Tags/Keywords:

Dartmouth Folklore Archive