562 GAMES OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS [ETH. Ann. 24 
Games of the first three classes are widespread and almost univer- 
sal. The ball race appears to be confined to the Southwest. The balls 
used vary greatly in material. The commonest form is covered with 
buckskin, but other balls are made of wood, of bladder netted with 
sinew, and of cordage, bone, or stone. 
Racker 
The game of ball with rackets is distinctly a man’s game, as op- 
posed to shinny and double ball, which are commonly played by 
women. It is, however, sometimes played by women, and in one 
instance by men and women together (Santee). 
Racket is less widely distributed than shinny, being confined to the 
Algonquian and TIroquoian tribes of the Atlantic seaboard and the 
region of the Great Lakes; and to their neighbors, the Dakota, on the 
west, and the Muskhogean tribes of the South. It occurs again 
among the Chinook and the Salish in the Northwest, and in a limited 
area in California. It is not recorded in the Southwest. 
Fic. 748, Miniature racket used by conjurers to look into futurity; length, 8} inches; Missisauga 
Indians, Ontario; cat. no. 178386, United States National Museum. 
The game may be divided into two principal classes—first, those 
in which a single racket or bat is used; second, those in which two 
rackets are employed. The latter is peculiar to the southern tribes 
(Cherokee, Choctaw, Muskogee, Seminole), among whom the single 
racket is not recorded. 
The racket may be regarded as a practical contrivance, akin to the 
throwing stick, but its origin is not clear. Morgan relates that the 
present netted bat of the Seneca was preceded by a simple stick, with 
a curved end, and Teit tells how bark strings were used by the Thomp- 
son Indians in bending ball sticks to the required crook. The strings, 
which were sometimes left attached to the bat, furnish an explanation 
of the present net. On the other hand, it is not unlikely that the 
racket may be related, with the drum hoop, to the spider-web shield 
of the twin War Gods, the probable source of the netted wheel. 
Rev. Peter Jones* figures a miniature racket ball (figure 748), 
8} inches long, now in his collection in the United States National 
Museum, as “ used by conjurers to look into futurity.” 
The ball used with the racket was either of wood (Chippewa, 
Pomo, Santee, Winnebago) or of buckskin stuffed with hair. The 
« History of the Ojebway Indians, London, 1861. 
