T-Totums, Game of Put & Take, the one I made and how it is played. "
T-Totum,
or teetotum
Wooden Top
-Teetotum A&S
Fair A.S. 50 (2016)
Marilyn
Holt Mwynwen Ysginidd called Strawberry
What: Is it?
A
Wooden top, a T-Totum.
Why would it have been
made, what use is it?
A teetotum is a top that has been squared. They were used
by children and adults for games of chance for entertainment and gambling. It
has gone through other names depending on region. The Latin word totum means all and is represented on
English tops with the letter T, hence the name T-Totum. Modernly written
teetotum.
Why am I choosing to
make it?
My
Persona is an ale wife who runs a brewpub. Being the fiercely proud Welsh
woman, as well a fine and good Godly woman, she felt it was blasphemous to use
Latin (God’s language) on the teetotum, and so in her house the teetotum was
carved with Welsh. And as such, this is
my reasoning for choosing to whittle, carve, and make a wooden top called a
teetotum. I, felt this creative addition worked, for the languages of the
teetotums in different countries have reflected the languages of those countries,
and as such, so should a Welsh teetotum.
This
also helps to round out my 50th year project, a handmade middleclass
tutor gambling/gaming set, which further makes my kit more period, a 50th
year goal of mine.
When: What time periods
were they made and use it?
It told that the T-Totum got its start in Rome as an emperor
commanded his wisest counselors to come up with a fresh game to amuse him. Theses tops had four sides and the letters
A,D,N,T, A take “ane” is the eyes of the
emperor, D is “Donoto alium” was the disaponted remark of the day in Rome, N
was a negative quantity “Nihil”, T
success could go no further “ totum” [9] Whether this is the truth is
hard to say But it makes a nice story.
The
Elliott Avedon Museum identifies this as a gambling game that dates back to
ancient Rome. Each side is marked differently and players wager on which side
will end up when the teetotum is spun.
From
Pieter Brueghel's "Children's Games", painted in 1560. A child is
holding a teetotum in her left hand. Brueghel would most likely have been
familar with the French version of the game. Each player contributes a certain
number of coins to the pot. The
Oxford History of Board Games by
David Parlett states the sides were marked as follows: 'P' for
"pillar" or "plunder", the player wins the same number of
coins he wagered; 'R' for "rein" or "nothing", the player
loses his wager and his turn; 'J' for "jocque" or "game, the
player loses his wager and must add the same amount of his wager to the pot
again; and 'F' for "fors" or "out", the player wins the
entire pot and the game ends. Players ante in again to continue playing. [2][8][13][14]
The model the child holds has a long spindle requiring two hands to spin it.
Modern versions have short spindles which can be spun in the fingertips.[2]
The
game is described as being played by English children at Christmas time.
Readers may note the game is remarkable similar to Dreidel, a game that's
traditionally played by Jewish children during the Hebrew festival of Hannukah
which takes place at approximately the same time of the year [10][13][14]
“According to the David Parlett, The Oxford History of
Board Games, 1999, pages 29-30, states that the Teetotum was originally a cubic die threaded on
a spindle so that only one of its sides were capable of showing after it
was spun” Source: Virtual Museum of Games [7][8]
How
(methods) did they make it? What differences are in these two things and why?
There has been lead
pewter, wood, clay, ivory, bone, & horn teetotums found. They were made
many ways, but whittling a wooden one would be child’s play for a youth or
their parent in medieval times. Carpenters and jewelers made and sold some toys
during the times especially around the Christmas and Jewish winter holidays when
these were often quite the toy of choice.
How
did I make it?
I used wood, a chunk
off a 2X2. I visually gauged the size I liked for the handle, took a straight
edge and marked around the four sides. I then put a circle on the top end for
the finished size of the handle. I sawed into the corners ½”, then chiseled along
the same path, and then I alternated and did that again on the sides. I did
this until I got down to about 1/16” inch of the final size of the top handle.
I then smoothed the handle with carving tools. Next, I marked the bottom of the
top by marking triangles on the sides towards the bottom of the block of wood.
I centered the point of these triangles to the bottom center of the block. I
then put the block in my vice with corner side up. I cut, using a hacksaw, at
an angle along the triangle lines down to the point, taking off the corners. I
did this for all four corners. I then cut on the flat sides along the lines at
an angle toward the center bottom point. Next, I cleaned up the bottom with
carving tools. I drew the letters on the sides of the block and carved them
with carving tools. When these were made out wood in period, they would have
used the same tools I did.
Markings
of teetotums though history, and my choice of markings.
The
tradition in England is to use Teetotums marked on the four sides with Latin
letters. The letters A (Lat. aufer, take) indicating that the player takes one from
the pool, D (Lat. depone, put down)
when a fine has to be paid, N (Lat. nihil, nothing), and T (Lat. totum, all), when
the whole pool is to be taken.
(Roman)
Latin
A - ane
D - donoto alium
N – nihil
T - totum
(English)
Latin
A –
aufer (take)
D- dpone
(Put down)
N-
Nihol (nothing)
T-
totum (all)
Welsh
C-
cymeyd (take)
R-
rhoi (Put)
N- nim
(nothing)
G- gyd
(all)
Other
accounts give such letters as P, N, D (dimidium, half), and H or T or other combinations of letters.
Other combinations of letters that could be found were NG, ZS, TA, TG, NH, ND, SL and M, which included
the Latin terms Zona Salve ("save
all"), Tibi Adfer ("take
all"), Nihil Habeas("nothing left"), Solve L ("save 50") and Nihil Dabis ("nothing happens"),
The
four sides of a Dreidel are marked with
the Hebrew letters 'Nun' which stands for "Nes" meaning
"miracle"; 'Gimmel' which stands for "Gadol" meaning
"great"; 'Heh' which stands for "haya" meaning
"happened"; and 'Shin' which stands for "sham" which means
"there", a reference to Isreal.[10][17]
·
If נ (nun) is facing up, the player
does nothing.
·
If ג (gimel) is facing up, the player
gets everything in the pot.
·
If ה (he) is facing up, the player
gets half of the pieces in the pot. (If there are an odd number of pieces in
the pot, the player takes the half the pot rounded up to the nearest whole
number)
·
If ש (shin) or פ (pe) is facing up, the player
adds a game piece to the pot (often accompanied with the chant "Shin,
Shin, put one in"). In some game versions a Shin results in adding three
game pieces to the pot (one for each stem of the Shin).
In Israel, the fourth side of most dreidels is inscribed
with the letter פ (Pei)
instead, rendering the acronym, נס גדול היה פה, Nes Gadol Hayah Poh—"A
great miracle happened here" referring to the miracle occurring in the
Land of Israel. Some stores in Haredi neighborhoods sell the ש dreidels which are imported from Israel. Dreidel has not any
manifested evidence that it pre dates 18c.and that it is just a Jewish vision
of the
teetodum.[common
Jewish knowledge]
How to play T-Totum
Welsh
C-
cymeyd (take)
R-
rhoi (Put)
N- nim
(nothing)
G-
gyd (all)
(English)
Latin
A –
aufer (take)
D-
dpone (Put down)
N-
Nihol (nothing)
T-
totum (all)
Each player who wishes
to play places an ante in to the pot.
In turn each player
takes a turn spinning the T-totum. The side that lands face side up determines
what that player does.
If the top lands with:
The
player take 1 coin.
Sources: (Bibliography)
1. http://digregardless.blogspot.com/2013/03/spitfires-teetotums-and-crumbling-spires.html
A fascinating little spinning top engraved
with old-fashioned capital letters was identified by John Clarke at the Museum
of London as made of ivory and a 17th Century 'teetotum,' a piece for playing
'put and take' games with
2. A
girl holding up a four-sided teetotum on Brueghel, Pieter "Children's
Games" 1560. 46-1/2 x 63-3/8" (118x161cm) Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Vienna.
3. http://cadw.gov.wales/docs/cadw/publications/150923Tudorgames.pdf
© Crown Copyright 2014 WG20762
4. British Museum
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=55081&partId=1&people=13829&peoA=13829-3-18&page=1
5. The Elliott Avedon Games Museum -- http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/~museum
6.Sports and Pastimes
of the people of England, Strutt, Joseph (1903) [1801]. Cox, J Charles,
ed. The Sports
and Pastimes of the People of England. London: Methuen. p. 305.
https://archive.org/stream/cu31924029932575#page/n441/mode/2up
7. Games Museum,
Waterloo,
http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/VirtualExhibits/Tablegames/Dreidel/index.html
8. Parlett, David The Oxford History of Board Games (Cary, N.Carolina; Oxford University
Press; 1999; ISBN: 0192129988 )
9. History
of Glenbervie By
George Henderson Kinnear Year 1895
10. Gomme, Alice Traditional Games of England, Scotland and
Ireland (London,
Eng.; Thames and Hudson; 1894; 2 vol.; ISBN 0-500-27316-2; $18.95)
11.
Date 17thC (early) Production place Made in: Germany
12. History of
Glenbervie By George Henderson Kinnear, 1895 edition, p. 88
13. Portman, Paul Pieter Brueghel's Children's Games (Berne, Switz.; Hallwall Press; 1964)
14. Game of the Month: Teetotums and
Dreidels, by Dagonell the Juggler (http://www-cs.canisius.edu/)
Possible wood solection Juniper
Juniper (Juniperus
communis) is one of only three native conifers in Britain. A member
of the cypress family, it has short, spiky leaves and distinctive blue-black
berries. Once a common plant, it was traditionally used in medicines and to
flavour food and drink, perhaps most famously gin. http://plantnetwork.org/
Trees considered native to Wales,
include a range of broadleaved species found in woodland situations (eg oak, ash, birch, willow, alder, etc) or hedgerows (eg hawthorn, hazel, blackthorn, field maple,
etc). nativetrees.org.uk/
Master
Avery Austringer
Master
Guillaume dela Sudeterre
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