Did anybody play Chinchilagua as a kid? Bill Cosby told a story about a similar game he called "Buck Buck". His character Fat Albert was supposedly the Buck Buck Champion of the World.
I stumbled across this video and it made me laugh remembering playing this game. The game is from Mexico and nobody really knows what Chinchilagua means. We played it growing up in the California desert.
It was usually boys who played, but at our small-town school, it was hard to get enough people for two teams. Then we had a couple of girls who wanted to play, then more. We found that by letting the girls play we could play more often. Nobody was concerned about girls playing in boys' sports.
There was often joking that the girls didn't weigh enough to be good players. That turned out to be untrue. Not every girl was... um, petite. Besides, it is a team effort, so the more the merrier.
For those not familiar with the game, one team would arrange themselves, beginning with one person (or pillow) up against a wall. Simultaneously, the rest of the teammates would create a human balance beam by bending over at the waist, interlocking their arms and hands around their teammate's legs, and ducking their heads to the side.
Once the line formed, the second team would stand in line, each taking a turn by running up to take a massive jump onto the backs of the formed chain or "burro", kind of like leapfrog. Before each jump, every kid would yell out:
"CHINCHILAGUA!" to let the other team know to get ready because a jumper was coming.
The goal of the jumping team was not to fall, while the purpose of the bent-over team was to hold steady as the opposing team jumped on top of their backs. If a player falls off, the jumping team loses. If the "burro" breaks, they lose. The losing team gets to be the next burro.
