On our recent trip to Elizabeth Farm in Sydney we came across a set of Knucklebones. I must admit that prior to this chance encounter I have never shown my kids this game so they were unfamiliar with it and had no idea how they were used. Their imaginations did take hold and they were able to guess a whole number of possibilities for the use of the bones but were far from guessing the actual game.
You may know knucklebones as plain knuckles or even Jacks. It is an ancient game played for thousands of years. Early knuckles, and indeed those that we found at Elizabeth Farm, are made from a piece of the lamb shank. Five are needed to play the game. There are many variations of the game but we traditionally play it by tossing the five jacks in the air and catching as many as possible on the back of the hand. You then flip your hand over and catch as many as you can in the palm of your hand. All of the knucklebones are then put down except one which you toss in the air while you attempt to pick up all the knucklebones on the ground as you try to catch the one in the air two. Sounds a little complex right? I’ve found that kids will make it up as they go along and as long as they all agree, there is no problem – right?
Want to play it by yourself? I adore this video:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl7a9zySKOg]
this looks so disgusting
they should be properly cleaned it, and in the 70s ours were made of plastic, or even metal.
Wonderful post, thanks so much! They have found knuckle bones in archaeological sites going back 10,000 years. To think that people, most particularly children and especially girls, have been carrying on the tradition of playing this same game of jacks for so many thousands of years is incredible. what a great way to introduce children to history!
We played it with a tennis ball and 4 knucklebones, we called it Bones and Ball, and then it went to 8 Bones, sometimes a set of 4 painted different colors. Trying to get them now is pretty pretty hard. Have to write the rules of the game we played in the 1960s and 70s.
I am 73 yrs old and i was telling my grandkids today that I used to play jacks as a child and I was very good at it. I now wish to introduce them to this wondetful game
We used to leave the knuckle bones outside for a week or so and the ants picked them clean.