GATSCHET — KAS. LEG. — COMMENTARY. [Si] 49 



"AiioUT THAT iiMK A DISPUTE AROSE," etc. Disputes to the same 

 effect were often raised durin<j^aiKl through the athletic intertribal 

 games so frequently mentioned in Indian annals. They are very 

 popular among the Northern and Southern tribes, being in fact 

 contests to show the physical superiority of the contending 

 parts. The vanquished party often raises angry disputes which 

 end in sanguinary conflicts, and have sometimes resulted in the 

 secession of whole sections from a mother tribe. The war of the 

 Senecas against the Eries originated in the defeat of the former in 

 one of these national games. In recent times the Cheroki, Cha- 

 'hta and Creeks had conventions for the same purpose, especially 

 for playing ball. There was a ball-play about 1855 ^'^ Blue ci-eek, 

 in the Kawita district, on Arkansas river, when the Creeks and 

 Yuchi beat the Cheroki players. A scuffle ensued, in which the 

 Cheroki came out "second best," ball-sticks being used as weap- 

 ons. During the secession war many ball-plays took place at Fort 

 Gibson. The Yuchi Indians have ball-plays and wrestling-matches 

 every summer two miles from Wialaka.* 



A cricket game called tingga exists in the Fiji islands, and 

 often terminates in quarrels and bloodshed. (H. Hale, "Ethno. 

 logy of the U. S. Expl. Exp.," p. 69.) 



The bli'E long-tailed bird which preyed upon the people is 

 an enigmatic being, which, from the long tail and the red rat issu- 

 ing from it, may with some probability be identified with the 

 storm deity, the Thiiuder-bird. His meeting with the image of 

 a female brought into the way of the bird would then be the storm 

 clouds meeting together, and the red rat the lightning proceeding 

 from the union of the clouds. People were killed by strokes of 

 lightning, which are symbolized by the arrows of the bird. To 

 explain the term blue^ it is necessary to know which term was 

 used by Tchikilli himself — holatla or o yolati ? The inference is 

 that the dark color of the storm cloud is meant by it. Possibly 

 the bow of the bird is the rainbow. Storm-clouds are personified 

 in several American religions by sorceresses and women destruc- 

 tive of mankind (Aztec, Iroquois, ecc.) ; here, the hurricane with 

 its long train of dust is indicated by the long tail of the miracu- 

 lous bird. A bird analogous to our fiisua 'lako is mentioned in an 



* Communicated by Gen. PI. Porter, at Wialaka. 

 V. — I — 6 



