CULIN] HIDDEN-BALL GAME: ONONDAGA 349 
lair that the red beams of the rising sun shone upon him, imparting their ruddy 
hue to the tips of his hairs, and thus it is that the bear’s hair is tipped with 
red to this day. 
The home of the wood-rat, létso, was a long way off, and he ran so far and so 
fast to get there that he raised great blisters on his feet, and this accounts for 
the callosities we see now on the soles of*the rat. 
So the day dawned on the undecided game. As the animals never met again 
to play for the same stakes, the original alternation of day and night has 
never been changed. 
Mr A. M. Stephen, in his unpublished manuscript, gives a lively 
account of a game of the kesitce which he witnessed on January 23, 
1887. The name he gives as keisdje. He describes it as played with 
one hundred and two yucca-leaf counters, cut off at the taper end, 
ealled ketan, a small sandstone nodule, tonalsluci, and a pinon club 
about 6 inches long, pedilsicli : 
The game was played in a hogan erected for a ceremony. Two shallow pits, 
about 2 feet long, were dug on the north and south sides of the fire. They 
were just long enough to hold four moccasins each, two pairs, set in alternately. 
Both pits were covered, only showing the aperture. The moccasins were then 
filled with sand. These operations were performed yery leisurely, with no 
ceremony apparent. The stakes were then discussed and, after much general 
talk, produced and laid on both sides of the fire beside the buried shoes. 
They consisted of saddle, bridle, leggings, buttons, manta, prints, blankets. 
A young man sat on each of the covered side pits. There was much apparent 
difficulty in the appraisement of the stakes, but this accomplished they were 
divided and thrown on each side of the players. After an hour one side held 
a blanket between them and the fire and sang, then dropped the blanket, and one 
from the other side struck the shoe and tried to find the nodule. The side 
failing to find the nodule gives up to the opposing side six or ten counters from 
the bundle. The sides were about equal in numbers, but this is of little con- 
sequence. A piece of corn shuck, black on one side, was tossed up. This was 
attended with much excitement. In striking, one of the players spat on the stick 
to hoodoo it for the strikers. There was much droll byplay as the game proceeded. 
One player, whose side appeared victorious, tried to copulate with the fire. 
Another, winning, covered his head with his blanket and imitated the cry of 
the owl(?). One side had a red and the other a black blanket. Much jesting 
prevailed. One player went around the fire as an old man, followed by 
another as a Yé, imitating masks, ete., amid great fun and uproar. The players 
tumbled and rolled in the fire in the roughest kind of horseplay. 
To win the maximum number of counters (10, I think) the seeker should 
strike two shoes and dig them out, i. e., serateh out their contents, and find 
nothing; then, on striking the third shoe, find it contains the nodule. 
TROQUOIAN STOCK 
Ononvaca. New York. 
Rey. W. M. Beauchamp ” says: 
A bell is hidden in one of three shoes, by the Onondagas, and the opposing 
party must guess in which of these it is. 
*Troquois Games. Journal of American Folk-Lore, y. 9, p. 275, 1896. 
