Easter Ritual Traditions

Easter has some of the best games. There's egg-dancing, egg-tapping, egg-tossing, egg-racing, or my favorite, egg-hunting. There's innumerable traditions wrung out of our interest in colourful little eggs and the harrowing nail-biting games of will-I-wont-I break them. These games can walk the razor's edge of sanity -- nobody wants to break their egg.

The scary truth behind Scott Snyder's Easter. (Circa 1980 DC Comics)

One of the more interesting Easter traditions takes place south of the border. This coming Easter Monday my Yankee-neighbors will be celebrating their 134th "White House Easter Egg Roll". Estimates are that up to 35,000 people will arrive on the South Lawn to play games, listen to stories and take part in the longstanding tradition of rolling eggs along the green fields.

Did I mention the AVENGERS and SPIDER-MAN are going? Hulk loves puny eggs.

The tradition was started in 1878 by US President Rutherford B. Hayes and only suspended once to deal with a shortage of eggs (World War II, you gotta cut back).

Fighting the war but still time for playing.

The history of Easter games goes back to early Western cultures. The egg was then-viewed as a symbol of rebirth by the Pagans and was picked up and carried to modernity by Christians who had so far lucked out by having really shitty games of their own. Stealing from the Pagans seemed much easier.

The egg-dance (alternatively called "hop-egg", the Saxon word hoppe meaning "to dance") had two specific traditions associated with it. The first was to dance around in a circle without crushing eggs on the floor while the second was the devil's version of hackey-sack. The player had to dance in a circle, roll an egg out of a bowl, and flip the bowl to cover the egg -- all with their feet (and preferably landing within a chalk circle on the ground)

Her posture speaks volumes to the fun she's having.

It wasn't long before more Easter games developed with an interest in a more competitive edge. For example, in the game of egg-tapping kids would bet their egg's structural integrity and smack them against an opponents' in hopes of shattering the weak, supple, shell of their enemy. Egg-tossing, a more-team oriented game, grew out of the desire to have kids work together and invent ways of tossing an egg from one spoon to the next without dropping it. This game blossomed and variations on it would soon pop up that crossed "hot-potato" with "catapult". It was equally as fun to look for a way to save the egg as destroy it.

My own childhood tradition, the egg-hunt, came from the same lineage of Pagan fun-time. Again lifted by the Christians to symbolize the rebirth of Christ, the egg-hunt is a scavengers hunt for little coloured eggs where the prize is the sweet chocolate therein and the sweet knowledge that you outwitted a mythical anthropomorphic hare that laid them willy-nilly all over the place. The game is exceptionally great fun for parents who like to leave clues to the next egg's location but some cultures have taken the game too far and added painful obstacles to overcome.

"I think he left some on THAT SIDE. Go on"

Regardless of the way you celebrate Easter this year, remember to keep it entertaining. Come up with a new tradition or dig one up you might not have done in forever. Either way, remember where it all started: With people tempting fate and smashing eggs.

Happy Easter.