Just last night I brought my talents to the table for a lovely game of Dominos. So as always I’m sipping a glass of wine and kicking ass… well actually I lost but you get my drift… After 5 houses, we decided to play pencil games like Tic-Tac-Toe, MASH and Hangman. I’m not sure if it was the shared 1.5L bottle of wine speaking or if I’m just that damn philosophical, but I began to question, “Who does the hangman represent? Is it a slave?” The truly strange part is that my opponent wondered the same thing. Is it possible that we have been playing this game since childhood, not realizing that it’s a mockery of our ancestors? Now I know you are probably thinking, “This girl has lost it.” Don’t sit here and judge me. Really think about that.
So who could answer this question? Google, of course. According to Wikipedia,
‘”The origins of Hangman are obscure, but it seems to have arisen in Victorian times,” says Tony Augarde, author of “The Oxford Guide to Word Games” (Oxford University Press). The game is mentioned in Alice Bertha Gomme‘s “Traditional Games” in 1894 under the name “Birds, Beasts and Fishes.”‘
That doesn’t directly answer my question, but what does this mean? The Victorian era was in the 1800s. It’s possible that this little dude could be a slave since Europeans did start Americanized slavery after all. Though I’d love to carry on the definitive fact that this is possible, I can’t fail to acknowledge that during those times people in general were put to death as a consequence of a crime via hanging and beheading. So our hangman could be an African/African American slave or just a criminal.
Whether it was the wine or my inquisitive mind that led me to this question in the first place, the world may never know, but I think for now I’ll avoid the game all together because of my uncertainty and because no one deserves to get their butt kicked in a childhood game. Lol.
So who could answer this question? Google, of course. According to Wikipedia,
‘”The origins of Hangman are obscure, but it seems to have arisen in Victorian times,” says Tony Augarde, author of “The Oxford Guide to Word Games” (Oxford University Press). The game is mentioned in Alice Bertha Gomme‘s “Traditional Games” in 1894 under the name “Birds, Beasts and Fishes.”‘
That doesn’t directly answer my question, but what does this mean? The Victorian era was in the 1800s. It’s possible that this little dude could be a slave since Europeans did start Americanized slavery after all. Though I’d love to carry on the definitive fact that this is possible, I can’t fail to acknowledge that during those times people in general were put to death as a consequence of a crime via hanging and beheading. So our hangman could be an African/African American slave or just a criminal.
Whether it was the wine or my inquisitive mind that led me to this question in the first place, the world may never know, but I think for now I’ll avoid the game all together because of my uncertainty and because no one deserves to get their butt kicked in a childhood game. Lol.
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Dr. Sunshine504 
It may have been the wine, but I've considered the same. I just didn't think on it long enough to boycott the game. 🙂
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