Magic in bingo
Citation
Don Booth. (1988) Magic in bingo. -- Lambda Alpha Journal of Man, v.18, p.51-58.
Abstract
Author looks at the popular
American pastime of BINGO. This game is the ideal for an
anthropological study of magic because not only is the game based
on pure chance, with a lot of hope on the part of the
participants, but the participants themselves represent a wide
range of people. Magic is used by people to try to influence the
outcome of situations or events over which they have no physical
control. In the games author attended, there was an adequate
representation of both sexes, a wide range in ages, a good
mixture of ethnic backgrounds, and a fairly good array of social
classes in attendance. Even with all of this variation present,
there was one common factor: magic. Although not everyone
practiced magic, of those who did, there was no apparent
domination of anyone type of practitioner. In this paper author
describes the various kinds of magic practices being utilized and
discusses the sequence of their occurrence.