606 GAMES OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS _[ETH. ann. 24 
kind of scoop, the cut end being bound to the body of the stick 
by thongs. The spoon at the end is crossed by two twisted 
thongs, with a longitudinal thong running through the middle. 
Made by Matawa Karso and collected by Mr W. H. Ward in 
1891. 
According to Tuggle,* the Creeks and Seminoles have stories of 
ball games by birds against fourfooted animals. In one story the 
bat is rejected by both sides, but is finally accepted by the four- 
footed animals on account of his having teeth, and enables them to 
win the victory from the birds. 
Fia. 775. Rackets; lengths, 37} inches; Muskogee Indians, Indian Territory; cat. no. 38065, Free 
Museum of Science and Art, University of Pennsylvania. 
Muskocer. Georgia. 
Réné Laudonniére ” wrote as follows in 1562: 
They play at ball in this manner: they set up a tree in the midst of a 
place which is 8 or 9 fathoms high, in the top whereof there is set a square mat 
made of reeds or bulrushes, which whosoever hitteth in playing thereat, winneth 
the game. 
John Bartram ° says: 
The ball play is esteemed the most noble and manly exercise; this game is 
exhibited in an extensive level plain, usually contiguous to the town; the in- 
habitants of one town play against another, in consequence of a challenge, when 
the youth of both sexes are often engaged and sometimes stake their whole 
substance. Here they perform amazing feats of strength and agility : the game 
principally consists in taking and carrying off the ball from the opposite party, 
after being hurled into the air, midway between two high pillars, which are the 
goals, and the party who bears off the ball to their pillar wins the game; each 
person having a racquet, or hurl, which is an implement of a very curious con- 
struction, somewhat resembling a ladle or little hoop-net, with a handle near 
3 feet in length, the hoop and handle of wood, and the netting of thongs of raw- 
hide, or tendons of an animal. 
The foot-ball is likewise a favorite, manly diversion with them. Feasting 
and dancing in the square at evening ends all their games. 
Maj. Caleb Swan ? says: 
Their ball-plays are manly and require astonishing exertion, but white men 
have been found to excel the best of them at that exercise; they therefore sel- 
dom or never admit a white man into the ball-ground. Legs and arms have often 
“Quoted by Mooney in Myths of the Cherokee. Nineteenth Annual Report of the 
Bureau of American Ethnology, pt. 1, p. 454, 1900. 
> Hakluyt’s Voyages, v. 13, p. 413, Edinburgh, 1859. 
¢ Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, p. 508, 
Thiladelphia, 1791. 
4 Schoolcraft, Information respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian 
Tribes of the United States, pt. 5, p. 277, Philadelphia, 1856. 
