cuLIN] SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS 809 
Wrynesaco. Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. 
Caleb Atwater” says: 
Athletic games are not uncommon among them, and foot races afford great 
diversion to the spectators. The women and children are present at these 
races and occupy prominent situations, from which they can behold every- 
thing that passes, without rising from the ground where they are seated. 
Considerable bets are frequently made on the success of those who run. 
YUMAN STOCK 
Maricopa. Arizona. 
Mr Louis L. Meeker describes the foot race in this tribe as follows: 
A whole company run, side against side, from opposite goals, a flagman mark- 
ing where each two pass. Each side runs in order. The final position of the 
flag marks victory. 
SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS 
(1) That the games of the North American Indians may be classi- 
fied in a small number of related groups. 
(2) That morphologically they are practically identical and uni- 
versal among all the tribes. 
(3) That as they now exist, they are either instruments of rites or 
have descended from ceremonial observances of a religious character. 
(4) That their identity and unity are shared by the myth or myths 
with which they are associated. 
(5) That while their common and secular object appears to be 
purely a manifestation of the desire for amusement or gain, they are 
performed also as religious ceremonies, as rites pleasing to the gods 
to secure their favor, or as processes of sympathetic magic, to drive 
away sickness, avert other evil, or produce rain and the fertilization 
and reproduction of plants and animals, er other beneficial results. 
(6) That in part they agree in general and in particular with 
certain widespread ceremonial observances found on the other con- 
tinents, which observances, in what appear to be their oldest and 
most primitive manifestations, are almost exclusively divinatory. 
“Remarks made on a Tour to Prairie du Chien, p. 117, Columbus, 1831 
