A Childhood Game

In the morning, before the sun came out, a group of Nigerian-Igbo children, boys, and girls, ages four through six, would gather in the front yard of the family house, and we would use a dry twig to scratch out a grid of columns and rows inside a six-foot square area on the sandy, earthy ground. Then we would take turns and line up with our backs to the grid. From outside the margin, the first child would throw a pebble over his head, hoping that it would land in any of the smaller units of the grid. Then, still in front of the margin of the grid, the thrower must retrieve the pebble, wherever it landed, from outside the margin. A good throw was when the pebble landed with a thud in the center of a unit, where the child could lean on one leg and one hand, stretch his body and retrieve it with the free hand. A successful throw and retrieval gave the child ownership of the unit, and he could use the acquired units to retrieve future thrown pebbles. The most accessible units to get were