100 INDIAN GAMES. 



leather curiously interwoven." Schoolcraft describes the 

 game as played in the winter on the ice. 22 



It will be observed that the widest difference prevails in 

 the estimate of the distance apart at which the goals are 

 set. Henry, in his account of the game at Michilimackinac 

 says "they are at a considerable distance from each other, 

 as a mile or more." Charlevoix places the goals in a game 

 with eighty players at "half a league apart" meaning prob- 

 ably half a mile. LaHontan estimates the distance between 

 the goals at "five or six hundred paces." Adair, 23 who is 

 an intelligent writer, and who was thoroughly conversant 

 with the habits and customs of the Cherokees, Choctaws, 

 and Chicasaws estimates the length of the field at "five 

 hundred yards," while Romans 24 in describing the goals 

 uses this phrase "they fix two poles across each other at 

 about a hundred and fifty feet apart." Bossu 25 speaks as if 

 in the game which he saw played there was but a single 

 goal. He says " They agree upon a mark or aim about 

 sixty yards off, and distinguished by two great poles, be- 

 tween which the ball is to pass." 



The goals among the northern Indians were single posts 

 at the ends of the field. It is among the southern Indians 

 that we first hear of two posts being raised to form a sort 

 of gate through or over which the ball must pass. Adair 

 says, "they fix two bending poles into the ground, three 

 yards apart below, but slanting a considerable way out- 



* a Schoolcraft's North American Indians, Vol. n, p. 78; See also Ball-play among 

 the Dacotas, in Philander Prescott's paper, Ibid, Vol. IV, p. 64. 



"Henry, p. 78; Charlevoix Vol. in, p. 319; Kane' Wanderings, p. 189; LaHon- 

 tan, Vol. n, p. 113; Adair, p. 400. 



"A concise Natural History of East and West Florida, by Capt. Bernard Ro- 

 mans, New York, 1776, p. 79. 



6 Vol. I, p. 304; Similarly, Pickett (History of Alabama, Vol. i, p. 92) describes 

 a game among the Creeks in which there was but one goal, consisting of two poles 

 erected in the centre of the field between which the ball must pass to count one. 

 He cites "Bartram," and the " Narrative of a Mission to the Creek Nation by Col. 

 Marinus Willett," as his authorities. Neither of them sustains him on this point. 



