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Like everybody else in the Delta, they listened to phonographs, jukeboxes and the radio, and they sang country music, popular songs of the day, even jazz, for both blacks and whites. Singer Johnny Shines, who knew [Robert] Johnson well, said that the singer of the doomy 'Hellhound on My Trail' was also 'a polka hound' - David Gates on the bluesman stereotype, Newsweek

Author Topic: Coon Can and Georgia Skin  (Read 4424 times)

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Offline waxwing

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Coon Can and Georgia Skin
« on: May 28, 2009, 10:14:47 PM »
Inspired by the card playing in the Mamie Smith - Harlem Blues vid Pan posted, I did a little googling on these two games, which we have discussed in various threads and for which, to my memory, we never came up with rules of play.

There is now a wikipedia page for Coon Can or Conquian which is pretty clear.

Georgia Skin is still a little less clear, but the gist of it can be gleaned from two humorous gambling forum discussions:

http://markgritter.livejournal.com/317064.html[Edit - Read down to the second description titled "Real Skinnin'"]

http://www.sportsunit.com/forum/showthread.php?p=39311

and then listening to this explanation by Zora Neale Hurston, which has a small mp3 format that should work for dial up:

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/flwpabib:@field(NUMBER+@band(afcflwpa+3137b1))

And there's also a transcription of Hurston here:

http://www.lizlyle.lofgrens.org/RmOlSngs/RTOS-DealGo.html

I also saw a mention that Georgia Skin is derived from Faro and Wikipedia now has a page for Faro as well, which gives some insight.

Apparently there were a lot of regionalisms in the rules of Georgia Skin.

Wax
« Last Edit: May 29, 2009, 12:46:00 AM by waxwing »
"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."
George Bernard Shaw

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”
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Offline eric

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Re: Coon Can and Georgia Skin
« Reply #1 on: August 19, 2023, 11:28:01 AM »
Curious as to what a "skin game" is I found this link that Waxwing posted quite a while ago, in which Zora Neale Hurston narrates a description:

https://www.loc.gov/item/flwpa000010/
--
Eric

Offline banjochris

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Re: Coon Can and Georgia Skin
« Reply #2 on: August 19, 2023, 11:37:17 AM »
If anyone is interested in card games of any stripe, I would highly recommend the website www.pagat.com, which has rules and background on card games from all over the globe.
Chris

Offline rvschex

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Re: Coon Can and Georgia Skin
« Reply #3 on: December 06, 2023, 06:52:27 PM »
Just out of curiosity I googled the term "cooncan".  Except for the card game website, this is the only reference I came upon referring to the name.   When I was a boy we played and stick and ball game that we (small black community) called "cooncan".  We staggered several (six?) empty tin cans in a pyramid shape and used a soft ball (?) and a stick (some times a sugarcane stalk) to knock the cans down.  I wanted to see if others played this game and did they call it that. I was also curious a to whether the term was actually derived from racist references to African Americans.  Can anyone respond?

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