cULIN] RACKET: CHOCTAW 60] 
their respective byes, in their ball-play dress, rattling their ball-sticks together 
in the most violent manner, and all singing as loud as they could raise their 
voices; whilst the women of each party, who had their goods at stake, formed 
into two rows on the line between the two parties of players, and danced also, 
in an uniform step, and all their voices joined in chants to the Great Spirit; in 
which they were soliciting his favor in deciding the game to their advantage’; 
and also encouraging the players to exert every power they possessed, in the 
struggle that was to ensue. In the meantime, four old medicine-men, who were 
to have the starting of the ball, and who were to be judges of the play, 
were seated at the point where the ball was to be started; and busily smoking 
to the Great Spirit for their success in judging rightly, and impartially, between 
the parties in so important an affair. 
This dance was one of the most picturesque scenes imaginable, and was re- 
peated at intervals of every half hour during the night, and exactly in the same 
manner; so that the players were certainly awake all night, and arranged in 
their appropriate dress, prepared for the play which was to commence at 9 
o'clock the next morning. In the morning, at the hour, the two parties and all 
their friends were drawn out and over the ground; when at length the game 
commenced, by the judges throwing up the ball at the firing of a gun; when an 
instant struggle ensued between the players, who were some six or seven hundred 
in numbers, and were mutually endeavoring to catch the ball in their sticks, 
and throw it home and between their respective stakes; which, whenever suc- 
cessfully done, counts 1 for game. In this game every player was dressed 
alike, that is, divested of all dress, except the girdle and the tail, which I 
have before described ; and in these desperate struggles for the ball, when it is 
up ([plate xvi], where hundreds are running together and leaping, actually 
over each other's heads, and darting between their adversaries’ legs, tripping 
and throwing, and foiling each other in every possible manner, every voice 
raised to the highest key. in shrill yelps and barks) ! there are rapid successions 
of feats, and of incidents, that astonish and amuse far beyond the conception 
of anyone who has not had the singular good luck to witness them. In these 
struggles, every mode is used that can be devised, to oppose the progress of the 
foremost, who is likely to get the ball; and these obstructions often meet 
desperate individual resistance, which terminates in a violent scuffle, and some- 
times in fisticuffs ; when their sticks are dropped, and the parties are unmolested, 
whilst they are settling it between themselves; unless it be by a general stam- 
pedo, to which they are subject who are down, if the ball happens to pass in 
their direction. Every weapon, by a rule of all ball-plays, is laid by in their 
respective encampments, and no man is allowed to go for one; so that the 
sudden broils that take place on the ground are presumed to be as suddenly 
settled without any probability of much personal injury; and no one is allowed 
to interfere in any way with the contentious individuals. 
There are times when the ball gets to the ground [plate xix], and such a 
confused mass rushing together around it, and knocking their sticks together, 
without the possibility of anyone getting or seeing it, for the dust that they 
raise, that the spectator loses his strength, and everything else but his senses; 
when the condensed mass of ball-sticks, and shins, and bloody noses, is carried 
around the different parts of the ground, for a quarter of an hour at a time, 
without any one of the mass being able to see the ball; which they are often 
thus scuffling for, several minutes after it has been thrown off, and played over 
another part of the ground. 
For each time that the ball was passed between the stakes of either party, 
one was counted for their game, and a halt of about one minute; when it was 
again started by the judges of the play, and a similar struggle ensued; and so 
