GAMES AND ENTERTAINMENTS. S50 
with them) it is under, and scores one if he hits, or the other scores if he 
misses. They keep tally with eight counters. 
The ti’-kel is almost the only really robust and athletic game they use, 
and is played by a large company of men and boys The piece is made 
of rawhide, or nowadays of strong cloth, and is shaped like a small dumb- 
bell. It is laid in the center of a wide, level space of ground, in a furrow 
hollowed out a few inches in depth. Two parallel lines are drawn equi- 
distant from it, a few paces apart, and along these lines the opposing par- 
ties, equal in strength, range themselves. Mach player is equipped with a 
slight, strong staff, from four to six feet long. The two champions of the 
parties take their stations on opposite sides of the piece, which is then thrown 
into the air, caught on the staff of one or the other, and hurled by him in 
the direction of his antagonist’s goal. With this send-off there ensues a 
wild chase and a hustle, pell-mell, higgledy-piggledy, each party striving to 
bowl the piece over the other’s goal. These goals are several hundred 
yards apart, affording room for a good deal of lively work; and the players 
often race up and down the champaign, with varying fortunes, until they 
are dead blown and perspiring like top-sawyers. 
There is a performance which may appropriately be described here, 
though it is not a game, but a sort of public entertainment. The Indians 
call it “learning the rules”, but that gives only a partial and indefinite idea 
of the whole. It occurs every spring, just before the trees put forth their 
leaves, sometimes in one village, sometimes in another. It combines jug- 
glery, spiritual manifestations, ventriloquy, concerts, and perhaps other 
features. White men are excluded, but I was smuggled in after night-fall 
by the friendly Paung’-lo. An Indian who is celebrated as a magician 
makes his appointment for the year some time in advance, and there are 
generally deputations present from the vicinal villages. The performances 
continue uninterrupted for eight days, or rather nights, and that, too, all 
night, for they are as interminable as a Chinese drama. This magician is 
called ka'-kin-nos' -kit (Spirit-dweller), or ka'-kin-mai'-dek (Spirit-man ). There 
is generally a novitiate present, who has been practicing the black-art for 
years, and has now arrived at sufficient skill to be initiated. The magician, 
as stated, carries forward the performances all night, but during the day- 
