cuLry] RACKET: CHOCTAW 599 
exciting them by many smart sayings. The men and women assemble in their 
best ornaments, they pass the whole day in singing and dancing; they even 
dance all the night to the sound of the drum and chickikois. The inhabitants 
of each village are distinguished by a separate fire, which they light in the 
middle of a great meadow. The next day is that appointed for the match; 
they agree upon a mark or aim about 60 yards off, and distinguished by two 
great poles, between which the ball is to pass. They generally count 16 till 
the game is up. There are forty on each side, and everyone has a battledoor 
in his hand, about 24 feet long, made very nearly in the form of ours, of walnut 
or chestnut wood, and covered with roe-skins. 
An old man stands in the middle of the place appropriated to the play and 
throws up into the air a ball of roe-skins rolled about each other. The players 
then run, and endeavor to strike the ball with their battledoors; it is a pleasure 
to see them run naked, painted with various colors, having a tiger’s tail fastened 
behind, and feathers on their heads and arms, which move as they run, and have 
a very odd effect; they push and throw each other down; he that has been 
expert enough to get the ball, sends it to his party; those of the opposite party 
run at him who has seized the ball, and send it back to their side; and thus 
they dispute it to each other reciprocally, with such ardour, that they sometimes 
dislocate their shoulders by it. The players are never displeased; some old men, 
who assist at the play, become mediators, and determine, that the play is only 
intended as a recreation, and not as an opportunity of quarreling. The wagers 
are considerable; the women bet among themselves. 
When the players have given over, the women assemble among themselves to 
revenge their husbands who have lost the game. The battledoor they make use 
of differs from that of the men in being bent; they all are very active, and run 
against each other with extrenye swiftness, pushing each other like the men, 
they having the same dress, except on those parts which modesty teaches them 
to cover. They only put rouge on their cheeks, and vermilion, instead of 
powder, in their hair. 
Cuocraw. Indian Territory. 
Catlin * says: 
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 number of 
spectators, of men, women, and children, surrounding the ground and looking 
Hh) 5 Vige Sp 
While at the Choctaw agency it was announced that there was to be a great 
ball play on a certain day, within a few miles, on which occasion I attended 
and made the three sketches which are hereto annexed (see plates xvi, XVIII, 
x1x) ; and also the following entry in my notebook, which I literally copy out: 
“Monday afternoon at 3 o’clock, I rode out with Lieutenants S. and M., to a 
very pretty prairie, about 6 miles distant, to the ball-play-ground of the Choe- 
taws, where we found several thousand Indians encamped. There were two 
points of timber, about half a mile apart, in which the two parties for the play, 
with their respective families and friends, were encamped: and lying between 
them, the prairie on which the game was to be played. My companions and my- 
self, although we had been apprised, that to see the whole of a ball-play, we 
must remain on the ground all the night previous, had brought nothing to sleep 
upon, resolving to keep our eyes open, and see what transpired through the night. 
During the afternoon, we loitered about among the different tents and shanties 
of the two encampments, and afterwards, at sundown, witnessed the ceremony 
«Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American 
Indians, v. 2, p. 123, London, 1841. 
