Tail-Catching Game

Tail-catching is a group game played in a wide court or playground in which two teams of children in a file, each holding the front one by the waist, compete to catch the other team's tail first.

This game can be played anytime in any season when there are a large number of children of the same age in the village.

First, children are divided into two teams. Every two children may do scissors-paper-rock, and winners form one team and losers the other, or otherwise, children may be teamed according to their villages, e.g. those from the upper village into one team and those from the lower village into the other.

When the teams are decided, each team elects its team leader. Elected as a team leader is usually a tall and strong child who is thought to be able to skillfully command his team and capture the tail of the opponent team.

Then the children in each team are aligned in a file in the order of height behind the leader and hold the front child’s waist or clothes. In the play the team leaders lead their teams, frustrating the action of the counterparts and seeking a chance to catch the tails of their opponents.

Whether they catch the opponents’ tail or not largely depends on the role of the leader, whose activity is also crucial in protecting his team’s tail.

Winners are the team that catches the tail of the opponents first. If the file breaks up in the middle or if somebody falls down while going round in pursuit of the others’ tail, you lose.