BALL PLAY. 19 
and children, were assembled, all dressed in holiday costume, 
and all as intent upon the game as it is possible to be where 
both pleasure and interest combine. The interest, is one tribe 
against another, or one county of the same tribe, against a 
neighboring county ; the pleasure, that which savages always 
take in every manly and athletic sport. In this instance the 
contestants were all Choctaws, practising for their annual 
game with the Creeks, and I was struck with the interest 
taken by all the lookers on, in the proficiency of each of the 
players. About sixty on each side were engaged in this 
exciting play, than which no exercise can be more violent 
nor better calculated to develope muscle and harden the 
frame. Each player provides himself with what are called 
ball-sticks. They are in shape like a large spoon, made of a 
piece of hickory about three feet long, shaved thin for about 
nine inches at the end forming the spoon, then bent round 
until brought into shape, the end securely fastened to the 
handle by buckskin thongs, the under side or bottom of the 
spoon covered with a coarse net work of the same material. 
He has one in each hand, and the ball—about the size of a 
large marble, is held between the spoons and thrown with an 
overhand rotary motion, separating the spoons, when the top 
of the circle is reached. . 
The game is this—Two poles are set up, each about seven- 
teen feet high and a foot apart at the bottom, widening to 
three feet attop. At the distance of two hundred yards, two 
similar poles are set up facing these. To strike the poles, or 
