Howard] THE PONCA TRIBE 129 



noticed that it came from a fii-e burning in a large grass lodge. Indians 

 were playing some sort of game inside, near the fire. It was the hand 

 game.*^ They sang as they played and seemed to be having a wonder- 

 ful time. The young hunter recognized the players as the members of 

 the lost war party. He spoke to several of them but they ignored 

 him, absorbed in their gambling. He stayed with the gi"oup most of 

 the night, watching the game and learning the songs used to accom- 

 pany it. Just before dawn he left and returned to the main camp of 

 the Ponca. 



He informed the head chief that he had located the missing warriors. 

 The chief and his Buffalo-police went to investigate. When they 

 arrived at the spot which the young man had described they found 

 only the ashes of a campfire and various scattered human bones. 

 When the young man was informed of this he realized that he had 

 been watching ghosts play the hand game. From that time on the 

 Ponca played the game as their own. 



Ponca boys had many sports and games of their own. As we 

 would expect, these lacked the ceremonial associations of the adult 

 games. J. O. Dorsey (1884 a, p. 340) describes a variant of snow-snake 

 known as Mqibagi. This was also known to PLC: "A game that 

 the Ponca children used to play was called Mqibagi. This means 

 'Slide-a-stick-on-the-ground.' The stick was held at one end and 

 thrown imderhanded along the ground. The boy whose stick went 

 the farthest was the winner. The game was played in the summer." 

 According to PLC the Northern Ponca used fossil ivory from "ele- 

 phant" (mammoth or mastodon) remains found at the mouth of 

 Ponca Creek for the tips of the game sticks used in the Mqibagi game. 



J. O. Dorsey (1884 a, p. 341) describes two other children's games 

 which resemble games played by White schoolchildren. One was a 

 game of tag: "Children strike one another 'last,' saying 'Gatsa,' i.e., 'So 

 far.' " The other he describes as foUows: 



TahMize is played by two persons. A's left hand is at the bottom, the skin 

 on its back is pinched by B's left hand, which, in turn, is pinched by A's right, and 

 that by B's right. After saying " Tahddize" twice as they raise and lower the hands, 

 they release them and hit at each other. . . . These two customs were observed 

 among the Ponka children. 



PLC described a Ponca boys' game called Manikadede or 'Mud-on- 

 a-stick': 



This game was played by two opposite sides. They would go down by the 

 river where each player would cut himself a willow stick. Then they would mold 

 a ball of mud on the end of the stick. The two sides would pretend to be warriors 

 from two different tribes, and throw mud at each other from the end of their 

 sticks. This was great sport. Both sides would be covered with mud at the 

 end of the day, 



«2 Parrish Williams stated that these warriors were playing the moccasin game rather than the hand game , 

 and that the hand game had developed from the older moccasin game. If so this "origin legend" is an 

 interesting example of syncretism. 



