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Quickies

Did you know …

• the first instance of the modern spelling of “football” appeared in 1608, in act 1, scene 4 of Shakespeare’s King Lear: “Nor tripped neither, you base football player”?

What was kemari?

Between 300 AD–600 AD a game called kemari emerged in Japan. Also called kenatt, it was played by eight or fewer people using a sawdust-stuffed deerskin ball about 9 inches (22 centimetres) in diameter. On a rectangular field called a kikytsubo, players had to juggle the ball with their feet and pass it to one another in the air, keeping it from touching the ground. Each corner of the kikytsubo was marked with a sapling, the classic version featuring a cherry, maple, willow, and pine. When kicking the ball up, a player would call “ariyaaa!” (here we go) and when passing it to someone else, “ari!” (here). The golden age for kemari was between the tenth and sixteenth centuries, as the game spread to the lower classes and became a popular subject for poets. One surviving anecdote tells of an emperor and his team who kept the ball aloft for over 1,000 kicks. Beginning in the thirteenth century, kemari players wore uniforms based on the traditional samurai’s costume, the hitatare.