Primitive Games. 273 



except in its simplest form, is therefore an artificial 

 game as distinguished from a natural game, which latter 

 may be defined as a game, such as ball-play in 

 its simplest form, which has originated spontane- 

 ously among the people who now play it, and has 

 not been derived from any other people or been developed 

 from any game imported from elsewhere. 



We thus come to the one great division which has as 

 yet been made in the classification of games; and 

 according to it all games are divisible into the two great 

 classes of natural and artificial games. The latter are, 

 of course, much the most numerous and the most pro- 

 minent; and it is consequently these which have been 

 almost exclusively studied by the few who have turned 

 their attention to the whole subject of the natural history 

 of games. On the other hand, it happens that our 

 Red-men are still in that condition in which artificial 

 games are entirely, or almost entirely, unrepresented. 

 Their games are natural games, and are therefore valu- 

 able as material to be used in the comparative study, as 

 yet almost unattempted, of natural, as distinguished from 

 artificial games. 



Most of the children's games, for we will deal with 

 these first, are dramatic representations either of the 

 doings of their adult friends or of animals. Just as in 

 our own civilized society we constantly see children 

 playing at marrying, and burying, and preaching, and at 

 coaching — in a church paper which I happened to glance 

 at the other day I even saw a serious complaint made 

 that parents are allowing their children to play at "Jack 

 the Ripper," — so do the Macoosi children about the Paca- 

 raima Mountains play at "coming from town." It must 



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