646 GAMES OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS  [E5TH. ann. 24 
They were collected by Mr Henry P. Ewing, who describes the 
game as follows: 
The tas-a-va game is not a Walapai game, particularly, although the young 
men and boys still play it a good deal. It is essentially the national game of the 
Mohave. They use a more delicate stick, made of willow, slender and curved 
perfectly at the end. The men all play it, young and old, and they are very 
expert, and it has developed them into great runners. They make a ball with a 
buckskin cover sewed on it exactly like the cover on our baseballs. Their ball 
is smaller and neater, their sticks trimmer and nicer, and when they play with 
the Walapai there is always a row about whether the Mohave ball or the 
Walapai ball shall be used. The Mohave usually give in, because they know that 
they can win anyway. As many can play as wish, and the distance for the 
grounds is usually from 3800 to 500 yards. In starting the game the ball is 
buried by a medicine man in sight of all halfway between the home stations. 
and at a signal the contestants rush in and dig out the ball with their sticks and 
away they go. It is against the rules to touch it with the hands, or anything 
but the shinny stick. The sticks are called tas-a-va; the ball tam-a-nat-a, mean- 
ing tied in a bundle. 
Fig. 844. Shinny ball and stick; diameter of ball, 1} inches; length of stick, 38} inches: Yuma 
Indians, Fort Yuma, California; cat. no. 63349, Field Columbian Museum. 
Yuma. Fort Yuma, San Diego county, California. (Field Colum- 
bian Museum. ) 
Cat. no. 63349. Ball (figure 844), covered with colored yarn, red, 
white, and black, 14 inches in diameter; and slender curved stick, 
384 inches in length, the handle straight, the end crooked, the 
outside of the curved end painted black, the inner side red, with 
three sets of bands of colored paint—red, black, and red; black, 
red, and black; and black, red, and black on the lower half of 
the stick above the crook. 
Cat. no. 63312. Ball and stick similar to the preceding, but uncol- 
ored and unpainted. 
Collected by Mr S. C. Simms, who gives the name of the ball as 
etsoat and that of the stick as sahtos. 
ZUNIAN STOCK 
Zuni. Zuni, New Mexico. (Cat. no. 3077, 3569, Brooklyn Institute 
Museum. ) 
Bag-shaped ball (figure 845), covered with deerskin, 2 inches in diam- 
eter; and curved stick, 35 inches in length. Collected by the 
writer in 1903. 
