preadolescent "tortures"

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:03 AM -0400 10/1/06, Grant Barrett wrote:
>On Oct 1, 2006, at 01:45, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>There was the game in which one guy held his hands out palms up and
>>another guy rested his hands palms down on the first guy's hands. The
>>idea was that the guy with the quicker reflexes would slap the hands
>>of the guy with the slower reflexes as hard as he could. [...]
>>Unfortunately, I
>>can no longer recall the name of this "game."
>
>We played this one, too. I don't think we had a name for it.
>
Ditto for us.  But this wasn't really a torture, since both players
were willing participants, as I recall it.  The difference between
this routine and the Indian burn/pink belly rituals is sort of like
the difference between "keep away", which was (or could be)
voluntarily entered into, and "saluggi", which (as discussed on the
list periodically) depends on the unwillingness of the kid whose item
(cap or whatever) is removed and tossed around by the other kids
while they cried "saluggi" (and, ideally, the victim just cried).
Saluggi, but not keep away, would count as a preadolescent torture,
but in a psychological mode.

LH

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