cULIN] BALL RACE: TARAHUMARE 673 
These managers also decide the number of circuits to be made, and get runners 
of equal ability, if they can, for each side, the object being to get the best 
runners possible. 
In important races the runners may prepare for a fortnight, but as a rule 
they do not practice much before the race, for running comes to them as 
naturally as swimming to ducks. Their training chiefly consists in abstinence 
from native beer for two or three days before the event. On the day of the 
race the runners are fec with pinole only; they have tepid water to drink, and 
their legs are well bathed in warm water and rubbed by the managers. The 
medicine man also rubs them with a smooth stone to make them strong. 
Fic. 8%. Papago kicking-ball player, Arizona; from photograph by Mr William Dinwiddie. 
A race is never won by natural means. The losers always say that they 
were influenced by some herb and became sleepy on the race-course, so that 
they had to lose. The help of the medicine man is needed in preparing the 
runner for the race. Te assists the manager to wash the feet of the runners 
with warm water and different herbs, and he strengthens their nerves by making 
passes over them. He also guards them against sorcery. Before they run he 
performs a ceremony to “* cure” them. : 
The food and the remedies he uses are put under the cross with many kinds 
of charms, different kinds of woods, and herbs from the barrancas. Some of 
the herbs are supposed to be very powerful, and they are, therefore, securely 
tied up in small pieces of buckskin or cotton cloth. If not so tied up, they 
might break away. The water which the runners drink is also placed near the 
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