Title: Tarzan the Monkey Man
General Information:
- Customary: Game
- Language: English
- Country of Origin: US
- Date and Place of Collection: 11/5/16
Informant Data:
Courtney Colwell was born on March 22nd, 1996. She was born in Maryland and moved to Rye, NY at a very young age. She has an older sister and a younger brother, and her parents are happily married. She is now a sophomore at Johns Hopkins University.
Contextual Data:
Courtney went to Midland Elementary School from kindergarten through 5th grade. I asked her to recall a game that she played a lot, and she responded with the “Tarzan the Monkey Man” game! We used this game a lot to assign teams, groups, or pick a person to be “it” for a game of tag or hide and seek. The game has somewhat vulgar lyrics. When the speaker is done singing the song, whoever he lands on picks a color to assign Tarzan’s blood, and then the speaker spells out the color the child has chosen. The person who is tagged on the last letter of the color is “it” or “out.”
Associated File (a video, audio, or image file):
Transcript of Associated File:
“Tarzan, the monkey man, swinging from a rubber band,
fell down, broke his crown, WHAT COLOR WAS HIS BLOOD?”
Informant’s Comments:
Courtney recounted that people would very often choose the color purple or red, and sometimes the game caused drama among friends because they did not want to be it or out. She played this game almost every week at recess and playdates. She informed me that you can also simply play it as a game of luck, and the last person standing wins, but that this was not the way they normally played.
Collector’s Comments:
I found this example of folklore to be very interesting, because it has to do with blood and someone falling, and likely, dying. These two things could both be considered taboo within childhood folklore. Although it is used as a playful game, the words spoken are rather graphic. I feel as though this type of folklore often allows children to desensitize to important, serious issues like blood and dying.
Collector’s Name: Addie Chabot ’18
Tags/Keywords: game, customary, children’s folklore, rhyme, counting