130 Mr. E. B. Tylor [March 14, 



long been known as clmeca. The Spaniards taught it to the natives of 

 South America, who took kindly to it, not as mere boys' play, but as a 

 manly sport. It is curious to read accounts by modern European 

 travellers, who seem not to recognize their own playground game 

 when transplanted among the Araucanians of Chili, even though it 

 shows its Spanish origin by the name of clmeca. Seeing this, one asks 

 whence did the North American Indians get their famous ball-play, 

 known from California right across the Indian country ? It is to all 

 intents the European clmeca, crosse, or hockey, the deerskin ball being 

 thrown up in the middle, each of the two contending parties striving 

 to throw or drive it through the adversaries' goal. The Iroquois say 

 that in old times their forefathers played with curved clubs and 

 a wooden ball, before the racket was introduced, with which to strike, 

 carry, or throw the leather ball. Of all the describers of this fine 

 game, Catlin has best depicted its scenes with pen and pencil, from its 

 beginning with the night ball-play dance, where the players crowded 

 round their goals, held up and clashed their rackets, and the women 

 danced in lines between, and the old men smoked to the Great Spirit, 

 and led the chant for his favour in the contest. The painter would 

 never miss a ball-play, but sit from morning till sundown on his 

 pony studying the forms of the young athletes in their " almost 

 superhuman " struggles for the ball, till at last one side made the 

 agreed number of goals, and divided with yells of triumph the fur 

 robes and tin-kettles and miscellaneous property staked on the match. 

 Now, as to the introduction of the game into North America, the 

 Jesuit missionaries in New France as early as 1636 mention it by 

 their own French name oijeu de crosse, at which Indian villages con- 

 tended " a qui crossera le mieux." The Spaniards, however, had been 

 above a century in America, and might have brought it in, which is a 

 readier explanation than the other possible alternative that it made its 

 way across from South-east Asia. 



"When the Middle Ages set in, the European mind at last became 

 awake to the varied pleasure to be got out of hitting a ball with a bat. 

 The games now developed need not be here spoken of at length pro- 

 portioned to their great place in modern life, as the changes which 

 gave rise to them are so comparatively modern and well known. The 

 Persian apparatus kept close to its original form in the game of pall- 

 mall, that is, " ball-mallet," into which game was introduced the arch 

 or ring to drive the ball through, whereby enough incident was given 

 to knocking it about to make the sport fit for a few players, or even 

 a single pair. An account of pall-mall and its modern revival in 

 croquet will be found in Dr. Prior's little book. Playing the ball into 

 holes serves much the same purpose as sending it through rings, and 

 thus came in the particular kind of bandy called golf, from the clubs 

 used to drive the ball. The stool-hall, so popular in mediteval merry- 

 makings, was played with a stool, which one protected by striking 

 away with his hands the ball which another bowled at it ; the in-player 

 was out if the stool was hit, or he might be caught out, so that here is 



