Primitive Games. 279 



of animal spirits without any dramatic element. For 

 example, all but one join hands and dance round in a 

 large circle within which stands the one player omitted 

 from the ring. This solitary player dashes hither and 

 thither, throwing himself against the enclosing wall, 

 till at last he finds a weak point and breaks out. 



And yet another, of a simple kind, consists merely in 

 forming a procession, each man tightly clasping the 

 waist of the man in front of him, which procession 

 moves forward with the usual rhythmic stamp and song 

 until suddenly and without notice some of the hinder- 

 most begin to pull back, so that the foremost are either 

 pulled backward, without moving the soles of their feet 

 from the ground, or show their ability to hold their 

 ground. Or, in another variety of this amusement, the 

 leader of the procession moves suddenly and without 

 warning backward, trying to upset the hindermost. 



Though the games as yet described are played gen- 

 erally by children, I have seen the young men join most 

 heartily in every one of them. And among the Arawaks 

 grown men and women, as well as children, play some- 

 what similar and equally simple games of imitation. The 

 trumpet-bird or warracaba game is simplicity itself; and 

 yet no one who knows the habits of the trumpet-bird* could 

 fail to recognize what is being imitated. The players in 

 single file, each with his or her hands on the shoulders 

 of the player next in front, march and hop round and 

 abojit the settlement, entering and prying everywhere, 

 emerging from the most unexpected directions, always 

 imitating the curious booming note of the warracaba. 



* Psophia crepitans. 



