PLANNING FOR THE BRIEF, BUT IMPORTANT WINTER SOLSTICE — OF CHRISTMAS…

THE human organism, whether we concede to creation or evolution has developed based on the blessings of our adaptation to the geographic challenges, greater or lesser that enveloped us where we were led to inhabit. But the evolution of our consciousness is unique in many ways based on the same influential circumstances, which determined access to the fundamental needs of adequate food and water, allowing for the opening of gateways to other dormant faculties that led to kinder Gods, adventures into imagination, priesthoods with time to unravel the language of the cosmos, architecture and invention, aspects of the faculties that define civilisation in our current narratives. Somewhere in the prehistoric period the understanding that stories told about Gods, devils and heroes, to explain the unknown was a potent tool (this interpretation is based on the fact that we do not know what they saw or experienced) as would be the topic of this article: “The invention of Children’s toys”.

No existing research can identify where the creation of ‘Toys’ actually occurred, current findings credit ancient Kemet, covering Kush-Sudan, Punt-Ethiopia with Dolls and games like ‘Jacks’ and Hula-hoops, the latter played with dried grapevines, the Sumerians and the Indus valley civilisation -Mahenjo Daro -Harappa, seemingly before Greece and Rome. Toys are instrumental in the development of the imagination of children, and our ancestors understood this in past millennia, it added to the normalcy and upliftment of life back then.

It must be realised that nomadic peoples may have found it difficult to expand into the time for toy development, not to say that through their raids such bounty would not have been acquired from their more advanced victims. Likewise, with the harsh weather of the winter lands, where food and defence were the principle priorities, such things were not essential to survival, until the conquest eras of both Greece and Rome, but this is not conclusive as new findings will add to what we know. Toys and children have always been an inseparable part of the symbolism of renewal that Christmas envelopes on the background of the past harvest seasons of sharing in honour of Mother Nature and the promise of blessings through house cleansing to make way for a social inventory followed by resolutions for the coming cycle, that the religious embodiment of the Christ Child speaks to us off.

Toys in yesteryear Guyana revolved around movies, Gunfight at O.K coral, war movies etc. the conflict was that our toy store displays came from England, while the movies essentially came from America. We, however, had toy stores then, that fit the need anyhow. Though there weren’t lots of money to go around, with most houses that had sons, toy guns at least played a significant part with the sound of bursting caps perforating the otherwise calm, that existed except for when two neighbours went after each other in a landing-to-landing or cross-the-street cuss down which will be intercepted once everybody is clear about the grouse, with several interpretations of the “buse” content, which will then fill episodes of following gossip.

But the guns that made the most noise were some cheap 25c tin pistols that keep more repeated noise than the ‘Cisco Kid, Apache or frontier 45’ to name those cap guns. Christmas should be what all indications declare, a celebration for, and of Children. The lore of Santa Claus may drift away, but the story of the Mystic Kings of old Elam/Persia and the Star they followed to find a child that they declared a saviour and the murder of the infant sons that followed under King Herod who existed, is content of substance that challenges scepticism while placing before us what the essence of the commemoration of the season of Christmas is grounded in. Back in my childhood, there was no TV in Guyana, so we read books, comics, western novels, etc. But every Christmas I would be given the gift of an Annual, LION, TIGER that comes to memory, at 10 or 11 years old these were treasures.

Guyana had from my memory a fledgling Christmas industry. As a local cowboy, you weren’t ready if you didn’t have a leather holster from a woman in Big Market who sold these almost exact movie-looking, locally made ‘gunslinger holsters.’ ‘Auntie’ we called her. Then these were tough push and pull toys made of wood, I later learnt that had they spray-painted those products they would’ve been much more attractive and popular, but the epitome of Guyana’s toy production to me lay (I’ve written about this before) in what I saw as a young man at an exhibition presented by the Linden Technical Institute where they had this model of operations at Linden with h-d vehicle replicas, produced by the students. My excitement came from browsing through my Godfather and father’s popular mechanic and other trade magazines for instructions to make model wood Tommy guns before then, I had seen an article about the Match Box Series, how they used moulds, I also learnt (the stopper) that the h-d vehicle replicas of the Linden models came from real vehicles and we would have to buy the rights from these companies to produce toys from them.

As we proceed to the Christmas, in the age of COVID-19, with many people out of work, let’s try as best to feed the excitement, the inspiration and self-esteem of children with a toy we know they will like and a book to accompany in the gift wrapping. After all, it’s a children’s holiday that we’re just the patrons and custodians of.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE :
Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp
All our printed editions are available online
emblem3
Subscribe to the Guyana Chronicle.
Sign up to receive news and updates.
We respect your privacy.