Patois and Paradox in a Boy Scout Treasure Hunt
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2800554 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jay Mechling (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1984 |
| Volume | 97 |
| Issue | 383 |
| Pages | 24 |
| Publication date | 1984-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American Folklore (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8715 • E-ISSN: 1535-1882 |
| Publisher | University of Illinois Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2307/540394 |
| OpenAlex | W2318341181 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
BOY SCOUTS, RECITING THEIR OATH, pledge their honor that they will keep themselves physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight. They do not pledge that they will learn the cultural formulae of American bourgeois capitalism, but they might as well, since most of those structures of relations are precisely what the boys are performing when they play their games at summer camp. This essay looks at one game played by a troop of Boy Scouts at their annual summer encampment high in the Sierra Nevada. The game they play is a Treasure Hunt, a game which, though seldom found outside wellorganized game settings like camps and schools, is connected with enough folk and popular culture genres in American society to suggest that it may be a convenient model for understanding American ideas about work, play, and wealth
Archaeology · Art · Art history · Literature · Treasure · History · Race, History, and American Society
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,11 |
| Citation span | 2008 - 2020 (13) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |