586 GAMES OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS [kerTH. ann. 24 
streaming out behind and their naked bodies glistening in the sun as they run. 
The scene is constantly changing. Now the players are all together at the 
lower end of the field, when suddenly, with a powerful throw, a player sends 
the ball high over the heads of the spectators and into the bushes beyond. 
Before there is time to realize it, here they come with a grand sweep and a 
burst of short, sharp Cherokee exclamations, charging right into the crowd, 
knocking men and women to right and left, and stumbling over dogs and babies 
in their frantic efforts to get at the ball. 
It is a very exciting game, as well as a very rough one, and in its general 
features is a combination of baseball, football, and the old-fashioned shinny, 
Almost everything short of murder is allowable in the game, and both parties 
sometimes go into the contest with the deliberate purpose of crippling or 
otherwise disabling the best players on the opposing side. Serious accidents 
are common. In the last game which I witnessed one man was seized around 
the waist by a powerfully built adversary, raised up in the air, and hurled down 
upon the ground with such force as to break his collar-bone. His friends pulled 
him out to one side and the game went on. Sometimes two men lie struggling 
on the ground, clutching at each others’ throats, long after the ball has been 
earried to the other end of the field, until the drivers, armed with long, stout 
switches, come running up and belabor both over their bare shoulders until 
they are forced to break their hold. It is also the duty of these drivers to 
gather the ball sticks thrown away in the excitement and restore them to their 
owners at the beginning of the next inning. 
When the ball has been carried through the goal, the players come back to 
the center and take position in accordance with the previous instructions of 
their shamans. The two captains stand facing each other, and the ball is then 
thrown up by the captain of the side which won the last inning. Then the 
struggle begins again; and so the game goes on until one party scores 12 runs 
and is declared the victor and the winner of the stakes. 
As soon as the game is over, usually about sundown, the winning players 
immediately go to water again with their shamans and perform another cere- 
mony for the purpose of turning .aside the revengeful incantations of their 
defeated rivals. They then dress, and the crowd of hungry players, who have 
eaten nothing since they started for the dance the night before, make a com- 
bined attack on the provisions which the women now produce from their shawls 
and baskets. It should be mentioned that, to assuage thirst during the game, 
the players are allowed to drink a sour preparation made from green grapes 
and wild crabapples. 
Although the contestants on both sides are picked men and strive to win 
[plates xv, xvr], straining every muscle to the utmost, the impression left 
upon my mind after witnessing a number of games is that the same number of 
athletic young white men would have infused more robust energy into the play— 
that is, provided they could stand upon their feet after all the preliminary 
fasting, bleeding, and loss of sleep. Before separating, the defeated party 
usually challenges the victors to a second contest, and in a few days prepara- 
tions are actively under way for another game. 
Of the ball game, Mr Mooney relates further: 
Some old people say that the moon is a ball which was thrown up against 
the sky in a game a long time ago. They say that two towns were playing 
against each other, but one of them had the best runners and had almost won 
the game when the leader of the other side picked up the ball with his hand— 
a thing that is not allowed in the game—and tried to throw to the goal, but 
it struck against the solid sky vault and was fastened there, to remind players 
