ABSTRACT
Several alternative explanations can be advanced for the genesis of the game’s name. Sally is an English dialect word for the hare, and the use of throwing-sticks for poaching hares was not uncommon during the nineteenth century and earlier. However, the simplest explanation based on English dialect is that ‘sally’ means to pitch forward or totter and that ‘aunt’ refers to an old woman, or one of bad character. (The shape of the dolly at which throws are aimed clearly suggests a feminised figure.) Similarly, when Aunt Sally was popular in America, from the 1850s, ‘aunt’ was a nickname for an elderly black woman. This is significant because the American variant, apparently imported into England around 1855, entailed pitching batons (or balls) from nine yards at a black doll’s head on a stake, attempting to hit a pipe held in the mouth, or which substituted for the nose, without striking the head. Like the coconut shy, Aunt Sally quickly became commonplace as a commercial sideshow at country fairs and racecourses, especially in southern England, with four throws per bout. This game was also known in France, as jeu de massacre (‘wholesale slaughter’).
