130 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 195 



PLC also mentioned popguns of clay which were made by the Ponca 

 children: 



You went down by the river and got some good sticky clay. This clay you 

 could make into a hollow ball by rolling it on your elbow. When you had a good 

 round ball you threw it out in the water. Then you took a stick, put a ball of 

 mud on the end of it, and threw this at the floating clay ball. If you hit the ball it 

 exploded with a loud pop. This was one of my favorite games when I was a 

 boy. It is called Ni-lkatusi. 



PLC and Leonard Smith both mentioned that Ponca boys used to 

 slide downhill on sleds in the winter. The sleds were made of flat 

 bison ribs lashed together with sinew. 



At the present time the favorite pastime of many Southern Ponca 

 adults is playing cards. Several of the Southern Ponca homes I 

 visited had a raised wooden platform, covered with canvas or rugs, 

 in the front yard, shaded by overhanging trees. Here the long 

 summer afternoons are whiled away with Poker, Hearts, or other 

 games. Apparently card games have been popular for many years, 

 for certain typically Indian practices have developed by which the 

 players may increase their luck. Thus Gilmore (1919, p. 82) states 

 that the fruit of the long-fruited anemone was chewed and spit on 

 the hands, or burned and the hands rubbed in the smoke, as a charm 

 in card playing. The name of this plant is Wadibabd-makq, or 

 "playing-card-medicine." 



WAR AND PEACE 



All of my informants stressed the fact that the Ponca were not 

 a warlike people, and were content to live in peace with other tribes. 

 They also pointed out, however, that the Ponca were quick to resist 

 any incursion upon their tribal domain. At this late date it is quite 

 difficult to ascertain just what the extent of the Ponca territory was 

 in the late prehistoric and early historic periods, or how well the 

 tribe defended it. 



In 1954 I spent considerable time attempting to determine the 

 boimdaries of the traditional Ponca domain. Though they differed 

 in minor detaUs, the accounts of the various informants were remark- 

 ably consistent. The area delimited, however, seems far too large 

 to have been used or defended by a tribe as small in numbers as the 

 Ponca were in the 18th and 19th centuries. The informants insisted, 

 however, that this was true, and that the tribe had been much larger 

 formerly. For what it is worth, then, a consensus of their statements 

 on the subject is presented below. 



The eastern boundary of the Ponca territory, according to most 

 informants, was a line extending south to the Platte River from a 

 place on the Missouri called Ni-dgatsdtsa, 'The-place-where-water- 

 splashes-on-the-chalk-cliffs.' Most informants thought that this 



