cULIN] RACKET: CHEROKEE 585 
Now a series of yells announces the near approach of the men from Raven 
Town, and in a few minutes they come filing out from the bushes—stripped, 
scratched, and decorated like the others, carrying their ball sticks:in their hands, 
and headed by a shaman. The two parties come together in the center of the 
ground, and for a short time the scene resembles an auction, as men and women 
move about, holding up the articles they propose to wager on the game and bid- 
ding for stakes to be matched against them. The betting being ended, the 
opposing players draw up in two lines facing each other, each man with his 
ball sticks laid together upon the ground in front of him, with the heads point- 
ing toward the man facing him. This is for the purpose of matching the 
players so as to get the same number on each side; and should it be found that 
a player has no antagonist to face him he must drop out of the game. Such a 
result frequently happens, as both parties strive to keep their arrangements 
secret up to the last moment. There is no fixed number on a side, the common 
quota being from nine to twelve. Catlin, indeed, speaking of the Choctaws, says 
that “it is no uncommon occurrence for six or eight hundred or a thousand 
of these young men to engage in a game of ball, with five or six times that num- 
ber of spectators ; but this was just after the removal, while the entire nation 
was yet camped upon the prairie in the Indian Territory. It would have been 
utterly impossible for the shamans to prepare a thousand players, or even one- 
fourth of that number, in the regular way, and in Catlin’s spirited description 
of the game the ceremonial part is chiefly conspicuous by its absence. The 
greatest number that I ever heard of among the old Cherokee was twenty-two on 
a side. There is another secret formula to be recited by the initiated at this 
juncture, and addressed to the Red Yahulu, or hickory, for the purpose of de- 
stroying the efficiency of his enemy’s ball sticks. 
During the whole time that the game is in progress the shaman, concealed 
in the bushes by the water side, is busy with his prayers and incantations for 
the success of his clients and the defeat of their rivals. Through his assistant, 
who acts as messenger, he is kept advised of the movements of the players by 
seven men, known as counselors, appointed to watch the game for that purpose. 
These seven counselors also have a general oversight of the conjuring and other 
proceedings at the ball-play dance. Every little incident is regarded as an omen, 
and the shaman governs himself accordingly. 
An old man now advances with the ball, and standing at one end of the 
lines, delivers a final address to the players, telling them that Unélanf’hi, the 
Apportioner—the sun—is looking down upon them, urging them to acquit 
themselves in the games as their fathers have done before them; but above all 
to keep their tempers, so that none may have it to say that they got angry 
or quarreled, and that after it is over each one may return in peace along 
the white trail to rest in his white house. White in these formulas is sym- 
bolic of peace and happiness and all good things. He concludes with a loud 
“Ha! Taldu-gwi’!”’ “ Now for the twelve!” and throws the ball into the air. 
Instantly twenty pairs of ball sticks clatter together in the air, as their 
owners spring to catch the ball in its descent. In the scramble it usually hap- 
pens that the ball falls to the ground, when it is picked up by one more active 
than the rest. Frequently, however, a man will succeed in catching it between 
his ball sticks as it falls, and, disengaging himself from the rest, starts to run 
with it to the goal; but before he has gone a dozen yards they are upon him, 
and the whole crowd goes down together, rolling and tumbling over each other 
in the dust, straining and tugging for possession of the ball, until one of the 
players manages to extricate himself from the struggling heap and starts off 
with the ball. At once the others spring to their feet and, throwing away 
their ball sticks, rush to intercept him or prevent his capture, their black hair 
