siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

140 BUREAU OF AMEEICAliT ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 103
GAMES
As was the case with all of the other tribes of the Southeast, the
2-stick racket game ^° was the most important, and we probably have
more descriptions of this game from the Choctaw than from any
other in the region. The earliest of these is in the French memoir
of which we have made such constant use. These people were, the
author says
. . . very great gamblers in a ball game •which is like the long racket [game].
They place about twenty of one village against as many of another, and put
up vpagers against each other to very considerable amounts for them. They
wager a new gun against an old one which is not worth anything, as readily
as if it were good, and they give as a reason that if they are going to win
they will win as well against a bad article as against a good one, and that
they would rather bet against something than not bet at all. . . . When
Ihey are very much excited they wager all that they have, and, when they have
lost all, they wager their wives for a certain time, and after that wager them-
selves for a limited time.
They count by nights, and when they wish to play with another village,
they send a deputy, who carries the word, and who delivers to the chief a
number of little sticks. Every day one is thrown away, and the last which
remains shows that the next day is the day chosen."
Bossu's account is nearly as old as this. He says
The Chactas are very active and very nimble. They have a game similar
to our long racket game at which they are very skilful. Neighboring villages
invite one another, inciting their opponents with a thousand words of defiance.
Men and women gather in their finest costumes and pass the day singing and
dancing; indeed they dance all night to the sound of the drum and rattle.
Each village has its own fire lighted in the middle of a wide prairie. The
day following is that on which the match is to come off. They agree upon
a goal 60 paces distant and indicated by two large poles between which the
ball must pass. Usually they play for 16 points. There are forty players
on a side, each holding in his hand a racket two and a half feet long, of almost
the same shape as ours, made of walnut [hickory] or chestnut wood and
covered with deer skin.
In the middle of the ball ground an old man throws up a ball made by rolling
deer skin together. At once each player runs to try to catch the ball in his
racket. It is a fine sight to observe the players with their bodies bare, painted
in all sorts of colors, with a tiger tail fastened behind and feathers on their
arms and heads which flutter as they run, giving a remarkable effect. They
push. They tumble over one another. He who is skillful enough to catch the
ball sends it to the players on his side. Those on the opposite side run at the
one who has .seized it and return it to their own party, and they fight over it,
party against party, with so much vigor that shoulders are sometimes dislocated.
The players never become angry. The old men present at these games
constitute themselves mediators and consider that the game is only a recreation
and not something over which to fight. The wagers are considerable; the
women bet against one another.
^ Usually called Toli, but that word is applicable to any kind of ball game and the
specific term for the game under discussion is ishtaboll.
8* Appendix, p. 254 ; Mem. Am. Anth. Assn., v, p. 68.