CULIN] FOOTBALL: ESKIMO 701 
bottom in order to give them greater weight when the ball is struck by them. A 
lusty Eskimo will often send the ball over a hundred yards through the air 
with such force as to knock a person down. 
At Fort Chimo the game is played during the late winter afternoons when 
the temperature is 30° to 40° below zero. It is exciting and vigorous play 
where a large crowd joins in the game. 
Sometimes the ball is in the form of two irregular hemispheres joined to- 
gether, making a sphere which can be rolled only in a certain direction. It is 
very awkward and produces much confusion by its erratic course. 
Eskimo (Centra). Cumberland sound, Baffin land, Franklin. 
Dr Franz Boas“ says: 
Another game of ball I have seen played by men only. <A leather ball filled 
with hard clay is propelled with a whip, the lash of which is tied up in a coil. 
Every man has his whip, and is to hit the ball and so preyent his fellow-players 
from getting at it. 
Eskimo (Ira). Smith sound, Greenland. 
Dr A. L. Kroeber ” says: 
Among amusements is ball-playing. The ball is of sealskin, and is stuffed 
with scraps of skin, so as to be hard. 
Eskimo (Western). St Michael, Alaska. 
Edward William Nelson © describes the game: 
Football (i-tig’-t-mi-u’-hlu-tim ). 
The ball (fn’kak) used in this game is made of leather, stuffed with deer 
hair or moss, and varies in size, but rarely exceeds 5 or 6 inches in diameter. 
The game is played by young men and children. The usual season for it is at 
the end of winter or in spring. I saw it played in various places from Bering 
strait to the mouth of the Kuskokwim; at Cape Darby it was played by chil- 
dren on the hard, drifted snow; it is also a popular game on the lower Yukon. 
Two of the participants act as leaders, one on each side choosing a player 
alternately from among those gathered until they are equally divided. At a 
given distance apart two conspicuous marks are made on the snow or ground 
which serve as goals; the players stand each by their goal and the ball is tossed 
upon the ground midway between them; a rush is then made, each side striving 
to drive the ball across its adversaries’ line, 
Another football game is begun by the men standing in two close, parallel 
lines midway between the goals, their legs and bodies forming two walls. The 
ball is then thrown between them and driven back and forth by kicks and 
blows until it passes through one of the lines; as soon as this occurs all rush 
1o drive it to one or the other of the goals. 
The northern lights (aurora) of winter are said by these people to be boys 
playing this game; others say it is a game being played by shades using walrus 
skulls as balls. 
«'The Central Hskimo. Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 570, 1888. 
> Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, v. 12, p. 800, New York, 1900. 
¢'The Eskimo about Bering Strait. Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ameri 
can Ethnology, pt. 1, p. 385, 1899. 
