Blind Man’s Buff is one of the oldest examples of tag games, charaterised by a “blindfolded” It.
The game is played in a spacious area, such as outdoors or in a large room. For a fun game of Buff you would need at least 5-6 players but, as usual, the more the merrier.
The game was played as early as 2000 years ago in Ancient Greece, and has widely been played in Europe and other parts of the world with similar rules.
European local variants mostly keep ‘blind’ in the name, nevertheless changing the name given to It. The Ancient Greek name ‘copper mosquito’ is partly maintained in Italy (blind fly). Some
other names per country are: ‘blind cow’ (Germany), ‘blind hen’ (Spain), ‘blind buck’ (Sweden). In other places the naming might get a more literal flavor, as in the example of Turkish variant
Körebe (blind it) or even so with the Igbo in Nigeria: Kola onye tara gi okpo? - ‘Can you find the person who knocked you on the head?’.
And the gameplay: One player is designated as "It" and is blindfolded. Then It is whirled around a few times until the sense of orientation is lost. Now It tries to tag (or catch) another
player without being able to see them. Meanwhile all other players try to avoid It. They scatter around, hiding in plain sight and sometimes teasing It to make him/her change direction. The
first player tagged (or caught) by It then becomes new It, and another round of the game is played.
In another version, It attempts to identify the person, and only if the person is correctly identified does the person become It.
