{{short description|Traditional children's toy}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2016}} {{redirect-distinguish|Balero|Bolero}} {{distinguish|cups and balls}}
{{Infobox Game | italic title = Yes | title = Cup-and-ball | subtitle = | image_link = Bilboquet.jpg | image_caption = French ''bilboquet'' | players = | ages = 2+ | setup_time = | playing_time = About 45 seconds to a few minutes per round | random_chance = Low | skills = Hand-eye coordination }}
'''Cup-and-ball''' (or '''ball in a cup''') or '''ring and pin''' is a traditional children's toy. It is generally a wooden handle to which a small ball is attached by a string and that has one or two cups, or a spike, upon which the player tries to catch the ball. It is popular in Spanish-speaking countries, where it is called by a wide number of names (including '''boliche''' in Spain, '''Capirucho''' in El Salvador and '''balero''' in most of Hispanic America), and was historically popular in France as the '''bilboquet'''. A similar toy with three cups and a spike called ''kendama'' is very popular in Japan and has spread globally in popularity.
==History==
The game was created in the 14th century and has been improved in different ways since then.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}} ===Americas===
[[File:TianguisDomingoRamos2015 067.JPG|thumbnail|Baleros at a tianguis in Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico]] thumb|Balero demonstration in Mexico showing a common technique of landing the cup on the stick.
In North America it was both a child's toy and a gambling mechanism for adults, and involved catching a ring rather than a ball. In some Native American tribes it was even a courtship device, where suitors would challenge the objects of their interest to a polite game of ring and pin.{{citation needed|date=October 2014}} The Mohave variant of the game included up to 17 extra rings attached to the cord, and game scoring involved differing point values assigned to different rings.<ref name=Leibs /> Other variants include those played by the Inuit of what is now Labrador, with a rabbit's skull in place of the ball, with extra holes bored into it, which had to be caught on the handle like a skewer; and those that used balls of grass or animal hair.<ref name=Leibs /> Ring and pin games in general were known as ᐊᔭᒐᒃ ''ajagak'', ''ayagak'', and ᐊᔭᖁᒃᑐᒃ ''ajaquktuk'' in Inuit dialects.<ref name="Blanchard1995">{{cite book|author=Kendall Blanchard|title=The Anthropology of Sport: An Introduction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aGeLoS1pWA4C&pg=PA148|date=1 January 1995|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-0-89789-330-5|pages=148–}}</ref>
===France=== thumb|Jeanne Bôle's ''L'Enfant au Bilboquet'' (around 1880)
The cup-and-ball is noted in France as early as the sixteenth century.<ref name=Leibs>{{cite book|title=Sports and Games of the Renaissance|author=Andrew Leibs|pages=84,147–148|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=2004|isbn=0-313-32772-6}}</ref> The game was played by King Henry III of France as historical records note, though his playing was considered evidence of his mental instability.<ref name="Freer1888">{{cite book|author=Martha Walker Freer|title=Henry III, King of France and Poland: His Court and Times. From Numerous Unpublished Sources, Including Ms. Documents in the Bibliotheque Impériale, and the Archives of France and Italy, Etc|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LHjTAAAAMAAJ|year=1888|publisher=Dodd, Mead and Company|page=10}} - ''"it is lamentable to read of the pitiful imbecility which could induce the king, the day following his indignant protest, to sally forth from the Louvre at the head of a disorderly troop, and to parade the streets of the capital playing with a cup-and-ball.''</ref> After his death, the game went out of fashion, and for a century the game was only remembered by a small number of enthusiasts{{Citation needed|date=September 2008}} such as the Marquis de Bièvre.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Strand Magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=67UvAAAAMAAJ|year=1907|publisher=G. Newnes|page=464}}</ref>
The game had its golden age during the reign of Louis XV — among the upper classes people owned baleros made of ivory. Actors also sometimes appeared with them in scenes. The game was very popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. Jean-Jacques Rousseau mentions the game early in his ''Confessions'' when stating his reservations about idle talk and hands, saying "If ever I went back into society I should carry a cup-and-ball in my pocket, and play with it all day long to excuse myself from speaking when I had nothing to say."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Rousseau|first1=Jean-Jacques|title=The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau|publisher=Privately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society London, 1903|location=Project Gutenberg|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3913/3913.txt|access-date=18 October 2014}}</ref>
===Iberian world===
The game is very popular in the Spanish and Portuguese diaspora. The name varies across many countries — in El Salvador and Guatemala it is called '''capirucho'''; in Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay it is called '''balero'''; in Spain it is '''boliche'''; in Portugal and Brazil it is called '''bilboquê'''; in Chile it is '''emboque'''; in Colombia it is called '''coca'''; and in Venezuela the game is called '''perinola'''.<ref name="CIVILA">{{cite web|author=Civila|title=El balero|publisher=Open Publishing|language=es|url=http://www.educar.org/infantiles/Juegos/tradicionales/balero.asp|access-date=3 September 2008|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080914195227/http://www.educar.org/infantiles/Juegos/tradicionales/balero.asp|archive-date=14 September 2008|df=dmy-all}}</ref>
In 1960, American lexicographer Charles Keilus (1919-1997) documented the term ''zingo paya'' for a cup-and-ball game in Tijuana, Mexico, and formed the Zingo Paya Society in Los Angeles to promote the toy and its collection.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://zingopaya.com/|title=The Zingo Paya Society|work=zingopaya.com|access-date=13 January 2016}}</ref>{{importance inline|date=February 2016}}
===England===
This game was also popular in England during the early 19th century. Jane Austen is reputed to have excelled while entertaining her nephew George in a game called ''Bilbo Catcher''. In a letter to her sister Cassandra she describes how George is "indefatigable" at the game. Her other nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, later praised Austen's own skills at the game, saying "she has been known to catch it on the point above a hundred times in succession, til her hand was weary".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Cup and Ball |url=https://janeaustens.house/object/cup-and-ball/ |access-date=2024-07-22 |website=Jane Austen's House |language=en-GB}}</ref>
There is one picture in the National Portrait Gallery of a young girl playing the game. It appears to be a copy of a painting by Philippe Mercier, although the original painting has not been found.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw40080/Charlotte-Mercier-Miss-playing-with-Cup-and-Ball|title=NPG D5676; Charlotte Mercier ('Miss playing with Cup and Ball') – Portrait – National Portrait Gallery|work=npg.org.uk|access-date=13 January 2016}}</ref> Unlike other 18th-century toys, which are found repeatedly in artwork, cup-and-ball games are rare, with only two pictures known, one copied from the other.
===Japan===
The game of kendama is believed to have arrived in Japan around the middle Edo period in the 18th century,<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=History |url=https://web-japan.org/kidsweb/virtual/kendama/kendama02.html |access-date=January 30, 2020 |website=Kids Web Japan}}</ref> and the game underwent significant modernization and standardization in the early 20th century, becoming internationally popular in the 21st century.
===Germany===
In 2011, a German company, TicToys, began to create a toy with the name Ticayo.
==Gameplay==
The main goal of the game is to get the ball into the cup. While the concept is very easy, mastering the game can sometimes be challenging.
There are several styles of gameplay in the Latin world such as ''la simple'', ''la doble'', ''la vertical'', and ''la mariquita''.
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
{{Portal|Games}} {{Object manipulation}} {{authority control}}
Category:Games of physical skill Category:Sports entertainment Category:Traditional toys Category:Wooden toys Category:Culture of Latin America