Ring spinning - Wamawashi

A game in which a bamboo or iron hoop is placed on the end of a Y-shaped pole and rolled forward while trying not to let the hoop fall over. In the old days, it was called "tagamawashi" and originally started as a game of rolling a hoop made from a bucket or barrel. Around the end of the Meiji period, hoops made from thick wire or iron were invented and it is thought that the game came to be called rinmawashi rather than tagamawashi. A haiku by the Edo period haiku poet Takarai Kikaku reads, "Tagamawashi ga (who) started spinning it?" and there is an article about it in Kiyuu Shoran (1830), so it is thought to have been popular around that time. It is said to have been played in Europe since ancient times, and there is a picture of a child spinning a hoop on a Greek jar from around 500 BC.

[Osamu Takano]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

竹または鉄などの輪をY字形の棒の先に当て、輪が倒れないように転がしながら進ませる遊び。古くは「たが回し」とよび、桶(おけ)や樽(たる)のたがを回して遊んだのが始めであった。明治末ごろには太い針金または鉄でつくった輪ができ、たが回しとはいわず、輪回しとよぶようになったものとみられる。江戸時代の俳人宝井其角(きかく)の句にも、「たが回したが（誰(た)が）まわし始めけん」とあり、『嬉遊(きゆう)笑覧』（1830）にも記事がみえるから、このころ盛んであったとみられる。ヨーロッパでも古代から行われていたといわれ、紀元前500年ごろのギリシアの壺(つぼ)に輪を回している子供の絵が描かれている。

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