Secret of the Hooey Sticks

          Folklore comes from all over the world.  It can be anything from songs or stories, to blankets and beliefs. Sometimes we aren't even aware of the folklore we all have around us.  After digging to find a piece of farm folklore that affects my life, I found an interesting, but obvious 'toy'.  The toy is called, by my family anyways, a Hooey Stick.

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          The Hooey Stick, also known as Hui Stick, Gee-Haw Whammy Diddle and several more, is a wooden stick toy.  The toy has a small wooden stick to go along with it.  The wooden stick is rubbed against the Hooey Stick, causing a propeller at the end of the stick to spin.  While there are several different ways to play with this toy, my family would ever so slightly move the rubbing stick to make the propeller change directions.  When the propeller changed directions, the possessor of the stick would scream "Hooey!". 

          Children would scratch their heads and try all day to make the hooey stick change directions.  My husbands great-grandfather made and gave away hundreds of hooey sticks.  It was one of the only toys the poor farm family could afford to give to their children and their grandchildren.  My husbands great-grandfather taught the magic of the Hooey Stick to his children, who taught it to their daughter who taught it to my husband.  

          The Hooey Stick folklore tradition was very popular among farmers.  The Hooey Stick was easy for people to handcraft, and very inexpensive.  Children enjoyed using the Hooey Stick, and when times got rough on the farm, the Hooey Stick provided for entertainment.  My Hooey Stick tradition started back on a farm several generations ago because when Fielding Winward (my husband's Great-grandfather) lost all but two of his fingers in a farming accident.  He couldn't do much but he could, and did, make Hooey Sticks.
          Like Fielding, many farmer families resorted to similar forms of entertainment when money was low and times were hard.  Many of these farming families passed on the simple trick of the Hooey Stick to their children and their children's children.  This tradition became more than a toy, but a symbol of simpler times.  The toy now came with stories about a farm several generations ago.  The Hooey Stick reminds us of our ancestors farming past.  It's a piece of folklore that will continue to be passed along to my children, and my grandchildren.          

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Sources:

"The Hui Machine - Physics Explanation." The Hui Machine - Physics Explanation. Math Harvard, n.d. Web. 27 July 2012 

"The 'Hui' game." The 'Hui' game. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 July 2014. <http://woodgears.ca/hui/>. <http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/pedagogy/huimachine/index.html>.