Before going into greater detail of where the roots of this well-known Middle European children’s game lie, a short introduction on how the game works is necessary.
The game starts by choosing one player to be the White Shark. The White Shark has to stand on one of the lines of the playing field (line A) while the other players stand on the other line which is on the opposite side of the playing field (line B). Each round starts with a question of the White Shark.
He asks: “Who’s afraid of the white shark?”
The other players answer: “Nobody!”
White Shark: “And what if he comes?”
Other players: “Then we’ll swim away!”
After finishing their sentence, the other players start running towards the other side of the playing field. The White Shark does the same but while he is running, he tries to catch the other players who are crossing the playing field. Whoever is caught becomes the White Shark’s assistant and has to help him catch the other players. When every player finished running towards his side of the playing field, the White Shark again asks the question to which the other players reply with the above mentioned words. Once they are done, the same procedure happens again. Each player runs to the opposite side of the playing field while trying not to get caught (or in the case of being the White Shark/ his assistants, try to catch as many players as possible).
All the players, including the White Shark, are only allowed to run towards the other side of the playing field. They are not allowed to return to the start line or take some steps back and if they do, they have to join the White Shark and become his assistant. The game ends once every player has been caught. The player who got caught last becomes the White Shark in the next game.
Now that you know how to play the game, we can get into more detail of its origin. This game is a controversial topic nowadays because its original name is “Who’s afraid of the Black Man?”. Due to racial discrimination, a change in the title was suggested. There are different theories to where the roots of this game lie but the most common one is that it originated in the Late Middle Ages during and after the years of the Black Death, a fatal plague that killed millions of people. It hit its peak in Europe between 1347 and 1351.
The way of how the Black Death came to the countries and the people can be seen in the idea of the game. The Black Death is being represented by the Black Man. He was characterized and associated with death, a dark and scary figure that brings evil to the people (just like the Black Death did). Even though in the game, the players say that no one is scared of the Black Man, they used to live in constant fear of being infected by it. Once more people got infected (=when the White Shark caught more people), it is much harder to escape (=to not get caught by the Shark).
The game also doesn’t end until everyone is caught, showing that no matter what they tried to do, there was no way out of it. Supposedly, this game gave the people a way of processing the brutal years of the plague. The game is a game with fear, the fear of being caught by the Black Man (=the Black Death). By constantly switching between getting chased and chasing the others, this game displayed a playful way to overcome this fear.
Even though, the period of the Black Death was almost 700 years ago and displayed a very hard time, the idea behind this game still exists and varieties of it are being played in schools.
It now gives children a way of burning off some energy and spending time together in a group.
Have fun playing!
Sources:
https://abcwellbeing.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/whos-afraid-of-the-black-man/ (sloveniaabcwellbeing, September 28th, 2022)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_schwarze_Mann#:~:text=Auch%20Ulrich%20T%C3%BCckmantel%20vermutet%20den,und%20selbst%20fangen%20spielerisch%20bew%C3%A4ltigt (wikipedia, September 28th, 2022)