Thorn: Rural ritual baseball games in Libya
From SABR member John Thorn at Our Game on July 25, 2012:
This is [a reprint of] the oft-referenced but little-read article by Italy’s Corrado Gini (1884-1965), a professor of sociology, statistics, and demography who was the editor of Genus, in which Per Maigaard’s article (the previous post in this space) appeared in 1941. Gini was also a leading Fascist theorist and ideologue who was a proponent of eugenics; his organicist theories of nations and their natality and degeneracy mirrored his belief in racialism. In 1927 he published The Scientific Basis of Fascism. Two years later, Gini founded the Italian Committee for the Study of Population Problems, for which Genus became the official journal. While Gini became best known for his statistical and demographic studies, it is this startling paper that has earned for him an enduring place in the study of baseball origins.
The article gives detailed information about two games (Om el mahag and Kura) played by the Berber tribes of the Gebel Nefusa which were studied and filmed during a scientific expedition of the Italian Committee for the study of population problems. Om el mahag seems to be played only by the said Berber tribes and may be described as an elementary Baseball. Kura is played all over Libya, Algeria, and Morocco; and, when it is played with a stick, is very similar to the American Shinny; when played with the foot, it is like Football. The article establishes three series of analogous games: (1) Om el mahag, Rounders, Baseball, and O’ Cat; (2) Kura (played with a stick), Soule a la crosse, Hockey, and Shinny; (3) Kura (played with the foot), Soule au pied, Football, and Calcio, and examines the possible explanations of their similarities showing the difficulty of an explanation in terms of diffusion or autonomous evolution and suggesting a more plausible explanation in terms of vestigials. According to the latter explanation, the analogous games played now in North Africa and America would be survivals or local developments from ancient games prevailing over much larger areas of the old world, whence they have been later imported, in a more or less modified form, in the new one. Several circumstances and considerations suggest that Kura and Om el mahag were connected in the past with spring rain rites.
Read the full article here: http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2012/07/25/rural-ritual-games-in-libya/
Originally published: July 26, 2012. Last Updated: July 26, 2012.