Rascals: from Nigeria via Minnesota!

[ta0]

I was talking on the phone with Gianni Casalino and he told me about children he witnessed in Cameroon playing with snail shells tops. Cameroon is a neighbor of Nigeria and when he started describing it, including the penalty of hitting the hand of the loser, I realized it was the same game we are discussing and the inspiration of the Rascals. He will later post more info including photos of the shell tops he got for his collection.

Googling for "spinning snail shell", I found a nice article about the game Olo Igbi played by the Idoma in Benue State, North Central Nigeria (Olo ~ shell, Igbi = snail in Idoma language) . The shell comes from the (giant) African land snail (Lissachatina fulica).



I'm guessing only the lower part of the shell is kept. The article says: ". . . extreme level of craftiness required to make the conical shell without shattering the entire brittle snail shell."

Some highlights from the article

The crafted conical shell itself is called the "Olo Igbi", with the term igbi being the Idoma word for snail and olo roughly standing for the conical shell. Thus, the call to play the spinning snail shell game is "a'lo to' Olo Igbi" (a'lo means "let us" while to' means "play"). The conical shell is held tightly upright by the thumb and any of the other fingers, and spinned by a proportionate force, moderate enough to maintain the stable spin ("dance") of the cone on its vertex. . .
Different styles can be introduced at this stage, including the the popular "King Kong" style involving swapping between both the palm and the back of the hand while the shell is still spinning. . .
The Olo Igbi game is not all about spinning the conical shell well. The player scores by manipulating the spinning cone to cover the sand, a feat called "o'kla" in Idoma. This means the point for a round is earned after successfully making the spinning cone to cover the ground with its circular base. . .
Depending on the seriousness of the game, the loser is punished in a predetermined scheme called "I'kpa" or the loser is just booed. A serious "I'kpa" scheme may involve all successful players taking their turn to strike the back of the hand of the loser with the vertex of the cone. . .

So the original game using a snail shell is still played and the rules are the same. The article also mentions the modern version with the pen caps:

A common variant of the Olo Igbi is the popular "koso" game made by fixing plastic pen covers into plastic lids of torch batteries. This form of the game brings efficiency to each spin, enabling players to introduce diverse styles.

[johnm]

The web page of that article has a link to a PDF of the article (which is not secure, so not linked here) where a couple photos of the modified shells are shown to keep only the lower cone geometry of the shell as ta0 expected.

From the following videos it seems the "capsize" event while spinning on a surface requires a touch action on the side to topple the koso which transitions to a rolling action and sometimes to a further transition to standing on the open end of the cone.  Resting on the open end of the cone is the desired end of an attempt, and if unmatched results in a point or the prize of administering the penalty.  I assume the capsize from a hand spinner rather than a surface spinner would similarly be induced by a finger contacting the side allow it to roll off the hand and finish a flip onto a surface or even target object or vertical peg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cn365bSaEA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbgnfNHPtZw

[ta0]

Wow! Great finds John! Thanks! We can finally see the game being played!

These players are obviously "amateur" (= adults  ). It would be nice to find "pro" players that can do it while spinning the top on the hand and can also flip it with a clean sweep.

It didn't occur to me to download the pdf. Here are those photos:





Now I need to find my Rascals (that are not in the blister cards) to see if I can do the flipping (I couldn't when I tried before). I think ITSA should organize a Rascal competition the next Miamisburg festival

[ta0]

I found my Rascals, but this is not easy.
After more than 100 attempts I could finally overturn a metal rascal that was spinning on the wooden floor so it ended up resting with the tip up. It was by pure chance.

I experimented a little by just dropping on the floor a Rascal upside-down and not spinning to see what happened. The metal rascals are quite bouncy and most of the time end up laying on the side. With the top not spinning, I was not successful with a straight drop higher than one inch. However, if I inclined it to about 45 degrees, I had some success at a 2-inch height. If I dropped the Rascal while spinning, it went to spinning with one point of the edge on the ground and it always ended up on the side. Some preliminary tests with the plastic rascals show more promise as it seems to be less bouncy. However, I'm guessing the key would be to do it over a dirt or sandy surface so it dampens the bounce.

[ta0]

Gianni wrote this to me:
"We were in Cameroon close to the border of Nigeria at the very beginning of the forest/jungle. Kids were trying to spin Shell tops.
If they were unsuccessful, the penance was to drop the shell on the back of the hand from a height of one meter, and this is quite painful.
The hand swells after a few hours of play and this is a great test of courage for the child, with the most swollen hand, who instead of being laughed is carried in triumph by all the children.
Nice reverse bullying story, good teaching for a child."

He got a bunch of spinning top shells and also untouched shells. These are some of them:



The shells were trimmed and prepared using the teeth and a knife!



Who would have thought that there would be a connection between a box of surplus metal spinning tops in a warehouse in Minnesota and people munching snail shells in the jungle of Cameroon?   

[ta0]

For completeness, here are some quotes from the story written by Mark on how Rascals were introduced to the US spintop community and how they were played. The complete thing is here: https://spinningtop.fandom.com/wiki/Rascals

Somewhere around 1994 a Minneapolis juggler named Daniel Westacott brought a few Rascals to a party at the Mondo Jugglefest in Minneapolis/St. Paul Minnesota. They were a huge hit. Especially with Mark Hayward. A few weeks later Mark got a package from Daniel that had about a dozen metal Rascals in it. Since metal Rascals are extremely tough, Daniel didn't bother with any packing material, so the UPS guy was rather sheepish as he handed over a loud, clanking box full of what he thought must be broken stuff. After playing with his new Rascals, Mark was hooked and saw the potential of this toy. On his next trip to Minneapolis, Mark stopped in at the surplus shop called The Ax Man and bought all of the remaining Rascals. It's not known how many there were, but it was a lot. Since he was a student at the time it was a big financial gamble.

Mark was a regular at juggling conventions around the Midwest, and brought the Rascals with him. The plan was to sell them at conventions to try to pay for the gas it took to get there. Mark would find a nice patch of floor and start spinning Rascals. Eventually a small circle of people would gather, and a good time was had by all. At $1 each, or 6 for $5 Rascals were usually the cheapest thing for sale at the convention, so a lot of jugglers bought them. Mark didn't get rich selling Rascals, but gas and food were usually covered.
. . .
The fact that Rascals came in packages of one, and were too expensive for most kids to buy a lot of them, seems to prove that the original manufacturers never discovered the joys of stacking.
. . .
The way you stack Rascals is you get one spinning really well on a surface, then snap start another one into your palm (this takes some practice), and tilt your hand until you get the one in your palm to drop into the one spinning on the surface. If you do it well, each Rascal that you add to the stack will add a little spinning energy and give you more time to add the next one. This is really fun. The unofficial world record was set by Jon Gates at his home in Lincoln Nebraska, where he got 17 metal rascals stacked just after Mark Hayward had left the room.

I couldn't find a video of Rascal stacking. I remember doing it with Mike Hout and it was fun, but he was much better than me. Here is an old video of just spinning a bunch, posted by Jon (probably him and Mark).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi_sKZ9tJ_w

[MarkHayward]

Nope, that wasn't me in that video.

However... I found a vintage (2010) rascal demo! I made it for Greg Cohen who had a company possibly interested in manufacturing Rascals again. The project never went anywhere, and I forgot all about the video until just now when Jorge asked me if I had any Rascal video. So here you go! Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/-W4AtuBOUHM

[ta0]

Thanks for posting that video, Mark.
I guess it helps that you are the current holder of the Guinness record for more tops spun simultaneously 
The 8-stack is really impressive.

[ta0]

Live Rascals in Florida?

[ta0]

I put this together with videos from Gianni documenting this type of play in Benin, close to the border of Togo (village Hekpe, 15 km from Djakotomé). This shows that the game is played at least in 3 or 4 neighboring countries: Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin and Togo. The ethnicity is Adja, and in the Adja language it's called Egoo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-k1UbakD2I

[ta0]

The first set of boys are unsuccessful flipping the shell but the second set have four or five successes. It seems that a looser/sandier soil helps.
I noticed that the man explaining the three different tops to Gianni says that the shell comes from a small snail (but cannot be too small if that is just the tip of the full shell). So, perhaps, it's not the case that they use the giant snail.

PS: At 1:00 the older girl, sweeping the area to prepare it for the boys to play, drops what looks like an electronic device with a screen, what seems out of place.

[ta0]

Another version, this one from Togo. I would call this one "the easy but painful" as the tops are very easy to flip so the penalties are given often and if the players want they can be painful as the tops are metallic (Gianni said they are too dangerous for children).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY-OrtwxsWc

Filmed in the city of Atakpamé, 170 km north of Togo's capital, Lomé.

[ta0]

Thanks to Gianni, who got them in Togo and Benin, I now have a pretty complete rascal collection:



On the first row you see a simple conical rascal but made out of wood. Next to it two rascals made by combining the cap of a pen and the cap of a D-size battery (one says "Type R20S", and the other the brand 'Sunwatt"). And next to these there is a wooden rascan with the same shape as the previous two.
On the second row you see an intact (small) shell, and 3 shell rascals. The smallest spins very easily, the larger requires some practice snap starting.
The third row are not rascals but tops from the same general region of Africa. A wooden pegtop, a bottle-cap top (from beer La Béninoise, tied with wire insulation) and a nut peg top.

[Ketzaltlipoka]

wow! that´s really a very nice set of traditional african tops. Specially, the ones of shell.

[ta0]

Gianni sent me this video recorded in Benin. Even though they are playing with the plastic version, it looks painful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP5Tnm-_fSI