IN NORTHERN MISTS 



also mentions that opponents are picked and that the game is played in pairs 

 [1896, i. p. 132]. Among the Ojibways, he says, the player who is carrying the 

 ball is often placed hors de combat by a blow on the arm or leg; serious injur- 

 ies only occur when the stakes are high, or when there is enmity between some 

 of the players. Among the more southern tribes, on the other hand, the game 

 is much more violent, the crosse is longer, made of hickory, and it is often 

 sought to disable the runner. This, then, is even more like the Icelandic game. 



Hoffman thinks that the game is undoubtedly derived 

 from one o£ the eastern Algonkin tribes, possibly in the 

 valley of the St. Lawrence. Thence it reached the Huron 

 Iroquois, and later it spread farther south to the Cherokees, 

 etc. In a similar v^^ay it was carried westward and adopted 

 by many tribes. This, then, points to its having originated in 

 just those districts where one would have expected it to come 

 from, if it was brought by the Norsemen, as Hertzberg thinks. 

 That the game is so widely diffused in America and has 

 become so much a part of the Indians' life, even of their 

 religious life, shows that it is very ancient there, and this, too, 

 supports Hertzberg's assumption that it is derived from the 

 Norsemen. It is true that Eug. Beauvois ^ has pointed out 

 the possibility of the game having been introduced into 

 Canada by people from Normandy after the sixteenth century; 

 but before such an objection could carry weight, it would have 

 to be made probable that the characteristic Norse game was 

 really played in Normandy; but this is not known. In support 

 of Hertzberg's view it may also be adduced — a point that he 

 himself has not noticed — that the Icelanders appear to have in- 

 troduced the same ball-game to another American people with 

 whom they came in touch, namely, the Eskimo of Greenland. 

 Hans Egede [1741, p. 93] says: 



"Flaying ball is their most usual game, especially by moonlight, and they 

 have two ways of playing: When they have divided themselves into two sides, 

 one throws the ball to another who is on his own side. Those of the other 

 side must endeavor to get the ball from them, and thus it goes on alternately 

 among them. . . ." (The other way of playing mentioned by Egede is 

 more like foot-ball.) 



1 " Journal de la Societe des Americanistes de Paris," 1905, No. 2, p. 319. 

 40 



