Lowbrow Wit-craft
How Our Ancestors Might Have Invented Bowling — and the Survivor Show
The pin-down game
One day Grog and fellow cave mates were playing around. The recent kills of a mastodon plus some turkey meat meant the tribe was set for a while calorie-wise. Thus, the free time.
They needed something to alleviate the boredom that comes from daily life — playing Survivor constantly.
Grog: Get out of the way.
Meatshank: You get out of the way.
Grog: Okay, you asked for it. Grog tosses a huge rock and hits a stick that is stuck in the ground, knocking it flat, completely missing Meatshank.
Meatshank: Good one Grog.
They kicked around some ideas — stones, sticks, old bones. They tossed rocks, skipped stones, and spent the next few hours knocking stuff over. The experimentation lead to a discovery. They shoved sticks in the ground and from a distance pitched stuff at them to knock them all down. This led to much enjoyment and was perfect for developing the survival skill of accurate tosses.
Rules for the game were developed. Ten sticks — representing the number of men in the tribe — were set up in a rough triangle fashion. The shape seemed to work best because experimentation showed that setting the stick “pins” up in a grouping made it easier to knock more of them simultaneously. (A crude triangle shape was necessary as geometry hadn’t been invented yet.)
Each time Grog knocked down a stick, the caveman won the opportunity to try knocking down the guy whose stick it belonged to. Of course, they all strived to be the best and fight all the others. Thus, knocking all ten sticks down was called “strikes.”. If the loser could still walk afterward, they were called “spares.” According to the rules, the loser had to re-set all the sticks — if they could move after the one-on-one battle.
But what to use for the toss? Rocks were heavy, but finding enough of them and carrying them around was too much work. Sticks were too narrow to be effective. One guy picked up a “bowl” from their just-finished meal and tossed it at the sticks, knocking them all down with a satisfying crash. It worked better than throwing a spoon.
But, the women complained, because the men were breaking all the bowls and there was nothing left to eat from or serve the food in. So, the men carved out “bowls” of rock to be used specifically for the sport.
One day on the third successful toss, one of the cavemen, not having any “bowls” available— as a joke — picked up the head of a turkey left over from their feast. He knocked all the stick “pins” down, which is why, to this day, when a “bowler” achieves three strikes in a row, it’s called “a turkey.”
Thus, the game of “Bowling” was invented. Ah, civilization at its finest. (crash)
For another game invented by these talented folk read here. The Poke-a-man game tested the prowess of all involved but was a little hard on the population.
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