MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, MUSIC, AMUSEMENTS, AND GAMES
The popular conception that there is no fun in red men is erroneous.
All of them, far from being taciturn, silent, morose, and lacking
desire for amusement other than scalping or torturing captives, are
full of humour and are fond of fun. To strangers, however, they are
often silent. In every village there is a great deal of amusement, and
while the race is deficient in musical instruments, and the music they
produce, if it can be designated by that term, is usually apart of some
ceremonial, they do sing and the singing is accompanied by rattles
and drums. These instruments, with a sort of flute or flageolet and
bells and whistles, make the sum-total of their musical apparatus. No
stringed instrument, it was believed, was known on the North American
continent before the Discovery, though recently Lumholtz has found a
primitive musical bow among the Huichols in Mexico that seems to show
no outside influence. Their drums were usually made out of a hollow
log and were of various sizes, though some tribes also used a sort of
tambourine-drum formed by stretching a piece of hide over a hoop. In
the case of the Mokis, the large drum was made by stretching hide over
the ends of a hollow log by means of strings on the outside running
from the edge of one skin to that of the other, zig-zag. These drums
are about twenty inches in diameter by some three feet long, and the
ones I have seen had an appearance of age that seemed to indicate a
remote origin. Rattles are frequently made from deer hoofs, or from
hoofs of similar animals, and also from turtle shells, and garments
are trimmed with hoofs so that the movements of the wearer cause them
to strike together with a musical sound. Sometimes the hoofs are
attached in groups of three or more to the ends of a short stick which
is shaken to produce the desired sound. This is a form specially in
vogue among the Tlinkits, and these rattles are one of the articles of
trade with the tourists in the North-west. Another form is a gourd or
clay globe containing pebbles or something similar. Rattles of this
kind are common in the ceremonials of the Mokis. Bells, as we have
seen in the preceding chapter, were made by tribes of the Central
American region of copper in the so-called “hawk’s-bell” shape, but it
is not absolutely certain that this form of bell was not derived from
European contact.[280] No other form of bell was known to any of the
natives.
[Illustration: AMERINDIAN RATTLES
Gourd, Ojibwa
Earthenware rattle from Chiriqui.
Tin, Ojibwa
]
Whistles were made of pottery and wood and of human and other
bones,[281] and were similar to our common whistles with one or more
holes in the tube for changing the note. The flute was of wood,
generally of cedar, which is considered a sacred wood. It was eighteen
or twenty inches long and was often ornamented with carving and tufts
of feathers, etc. In Mexico, some were made of terra cotta.
[Illustration: OMAHA LARGE FLUTE
Made of red cedar. Flutes were also made of eagle wing bones and of
reed
]
It is certain that the sounds produced on these various instruments
would in no way suggest or resemble what is understood by music among
people of European origin, and it is also probable that our music when
first heard by Amerinds seems to them more like wailing and lamentation
than sounds of pleasure. I remember an evening long ago, in Arizona,
when we had the interesting companionship of several intelligent Navajo
chiefs, who entertained us by singing, accompanying themselves by
drumming on the bottom of one of our camp kettles. At length someone
of our party exclaimed, “Now let’s give them _Home, Sweet Home_,” and
this song was accordingly rendered in a way that should have moved the
savage to tears, but, though the firelight was brilliant, I failed to
detect any; indeed their expression appeared to resemble that which
a professional musician of our own race might have exhibited. They
were perfectly satisfied with a single selection, and they politely
said _Buéno_. The Navajos have a peculiar drum, the basket drum,
described by Washington Matthews.[282] It is a bowl-shaped basket made
according to special rules and rites, and inverted is used as a drum
in certain ceremonials, being beaten by a stick, also manufactured
in a special way, and according to long-established religious rites.
Whenever a ceremony is completed this stick is always pulled apart
during an appropriate song, and its fragments “deposited, with prayer
and ceremony, in the fork of a cedar tree or other secure place.” It is
made from yucca leaves, four being the prescribed number, and every one
of these must be absolutely free from blemish. One from each cardinal
point of the compass is necessary, and the making of the drumstick from
them is a serious matter, even the rejected fragments being disposed of
in some safe place with a benediction:
“Thus will it be beautiful.
Thus walk in beauty, my grandchild.”
“In none of the ancient Navajo rites is a regular drum or tom-tom
employed,” says Matthews. “The inverted basket serves the purpose of
one.”
“The musical instruments,” says Bandelier, “which, while still in use
in Mexico, are known to antedate the Conquest, are but three in number,
one of which is already falling into oblivion. It is the _tozacatl_
(sounding-cane), described to me as a long cane, bent round like an
Alpine horn. I never saw one, but its sound is said to be a sonorous
bellowing. The other is the _chirimia_. It is made of dark brown
wood, called _tepehuaje_, brought to Cholula from Matamoras-Yzucar,
or near Atlixco. Its length is 0.46 metre (about 18 inches) and its
width at the mouth is 0.06 metre (about 3 inches). It has eleven
holes irregularly arranged, and the mouthpiece is a thin plate of
horn on a stem of brass. The noise produced by this instrument is a
fit accompaniment to the shrill Indian voices, being horrible beyond
all description.... The big drum, the _tlapan-huehuetl_, was formerly
made out of the trunk of a tree properly hollowed, over which, at
one end, a deerskin or some other dried hide was stretched. All the
older authors make more or less mention of this instrument, but more
particularly Bernal Diez de Castillo, who says, when describing the
upper platform of the principal mounds of worship of Mexico: ‘And there
they had an exceedingly large drum, which, when beaten, gave a sound as
if from the infernal regions, which was heard at more than two leagues
off, and they said that the skin was that of large snakes.’”[283] The
_teponaztli_ was a wooden instrument with two tongues that were beaten
with a stick. Conch shells were also used as musical instruments. Some
of these were of very great size.
[Illustration: DRUM OF TERRA COTTA, CHIRIQUI]
The Eskimo drum is like a tambourine, a skin stretched over a hoop.
Some of the Chiriqui whistles were shaped like a top, while others
were straight with finger holes. These various types were distributed
over the whole area of the continent, the drum and the rattle always
predominating.
The Amerind singing at first seems extremely monotonous to our ears and
the impression is that all tribes sing alike, but each stock has its
own methods and peculiarities. A foundation principle with all in the
men’s singing seems to be an explosive quality of vocalisation—that
is, violent explosive tones instead of, as with us, tones long drawn
out. The Moki seems generally to sing nothing but “ho, ho, ho, ho, he,
he, he, he, hay, hay, hay,” etc., and he has quite a different rhythm
from the Ute, while the singing of the Navajo, when the singer opens
out all the stops, is more like the voice of a cat in the back yard
than any other sound in civilisation that I can think of. Farther north
the sounds change again: the Tlinkit vocalisation suggests death by
strangulation.
[Illustration: MENOMINEE TAMBOURINE DRUM
A common form with many tribes
]
[Illustration: OMAHA BOX DRUM
A common form with most tribes. Originally made from a hollow log
]
Fillmore states that the Navajo songs were the most primitive of any
he studied. “They form in fact the connecting link between excited
howling and excited singing. The quality of tone is indescribable,
being more like a yelp than anything else; but the intervals yelped
are unmistakably those of the major chord or of the minor chord.
The tone-quality is that of shouting, or even of howling, but the
pitch-relations into which they tend to fall are those of the major
chord.... Some of the Navaho songs are illustrations of melody so
primitive as to bring us very near to the beginning of music-making....
I started my investigations with the impression that there might be
essential differences in structure between the Indian music and our
own. I studied the Indian music for ten years with the utmost care
and thoroughness of which I was capable. I have failed to find one
single interval in Indian music which we do not use. It is true,
I have often heard Indians sing these intervals out of tune; but
this is a phenomenon by no means confined to savage or uncivilised
races. In every such case, when I was singing with Indians and was
able to get at their real intentions, I have found that they meant
to sing exactly the interval we should sing in their place.... I
have also found that increase of power is almost always accompanied
with increased elevation of pitch, and diminution of intensity with
a lowering of pitch, seemingly without the Indian being aware of
it.... The evidence of the essential unity of all music, from the
most primitive to the most advanced, is cumulative. The Navaho howls
his song to the war gods directly along the line of the major chord;
Beethoven makes the first theme of his great ‘Eroica’ symphony out of
precisely the same material. The Tigua makes his ‘Dance of the Wheel’
out of a major chord, and its relative minor; Wagner makes Lohengrin
sing ‘Mein lieber schwan’ to a melody composed of exactly the same
ingredients. In short there is only one kind of music in the world.”
Like everything else pertaining to man, it is a matter of development
modified by circumstances. Fillmore’s excellent investigation[284] in
this line only proves again that man is the same in all climes and ages
since first we get track of him, so far as his fundamental make-up is
concerned. Variations and differences are only those which come from a
development of latent talents or possibilities. He always moves, when
he moves, along certain lines that are prearranged by his constitution
and his environment. He may stop where circumstances direct, but he
will have stopped where others stopped before.
[Illustration: SET OF PLAYING STICKS]
There is always a great deal of repetition in the songs. The Amerind
seems content to go over and over again the same few notes. In some
tribes the poet and singer stands in the interior of a circle formed by
all the members of the tribe—men, women, and children—around a cedar
tree from which all but the top branches have been removed. A time of
moonlight is chosen, and I remember well such a night with some Pai
Utes, of Arizona. The poet recited his refrain, then all took it up
and repeated it in song, circling round and round the cedar with their
peculiar shuffle, repeating and repeating. I joined the circle and the
singing till I became tired, and finally left them still enjoying it.
The poet would give out some such stanza as
“No rabbit kill,
No rabbit eat,”
and it would serve the purpose for a considerable time, when he would
be obliged to announce a new one.
Mooney has translated some of the songs of the Arapahos used in the
Ghost or Resurrection Dance, and I give several as specimens of their
style[285]:
“O, my children! O, my children!
Here is another of your pipes—He eye!
Here is another of your pipes—He eye!
Look! thus I shouted—He eye!
Look! thus I shouted—He eye!
When I moved the earth—He eye!
When I moved the earth—He eye!
————
“The sacred pipe tells me—E yahe eye!
The sacred pipe tells me—E yahe eye!
Our father—Yahe eye!
Our father—Yahe eye!
We shall surely be put again (with our friends) E yahe eye!
We shall surely be put again (with our friends) E yahe eye!
Our father, E yahe eye!
Our father, E yahe eye!
————
“The cedar tree, the cedar tree!
We have it in the centre!
We have it in the centre!
When we dance,
When we dance,
We have it in the centre!
We have it in the centre!
————
“My children, my children!
It is I who wear the morning star on my head!
It is I who wear the morning star on my head!
I show it to my children!
I show it to my children!
Says the father!
Says the father!
————
“With the ba-qati wheel I am gambling!
With the ba-qati wheel I am gambling!
With the black mark I win the game!
With the black mark I win the game!”
“This (last) song is from the northern Arapaho. The author of it in
his visit to the spirit world, found his former friends playing the
old game of the _baqati_ wheel, which was practically obsolete among
the prairie tribes, but which is being revived since the advent of the
Ghost Dance.... The game is played with a wheel (_baqati_, large wheel)
and two pairs of throwing sticks.... It is a man’s game and there are
three players, one rolling the wheel while the other two, each armed
with a pair of throwing sticks, run after it and throw the sticks so as
to cross the wheel in a certain position.”[286]
[Illustration: PUEBLO RATTLES.
Turtle shell, with hoofs of goats or sheep. Fastened to the rear of
the right leg near the knee in dancing Painted gourd with wood handle
]
Among the Mokis, some of the old men are custodians of songs, according
to the societies to which they belong. Such a man is leader of the
singing. It is he who knows the old songs. He meets a lot of the young
men at a specified house, and placing an old tin pan on the floor to
spit in while smoking cigarettes, and beside it a candle for light,
they group themselves in a circle, sitting on the floor, while the
instructor takes his place on a stool at the large double-headed drum
at one end. He runs over a passage, beating time on the drum, and
then all join in with a vigour that well-nigh raises the roof. There
was something fine in the force and power with which these songs were
rendered, and it was the only time in my experience that my artistic
sense was stirred by Amerind singing. Later, on the same evening as the
gathering mentioned, when the same young men were rehearsing further
and also practising the dance with some small girls in a neighbouring
house, the singing lost its fire and was not at all thrilling. Before
the rehearsal with the young men the “choir master” rehearses by
himself. From my house at Tewa, on the “East Mesa,” I could hear just
after dark, every evening, through the stone wall, continuous singing.
It was in the next room or “house,” the entrance to which, though on
my level, was around a corner and not connected in any way with my
balcony. I had a ladder of my own. I was curious to see who it was that
was so devoted to this amusement. I mounted to my house-top by means of
steps on the end of a wall, and then I could look down my neighbour’s
chimney, from which little smoke and much sound were arising. I
could see plainly the singer, an old man, sitting cross-legged
before the fire, its light softly illuminating him, with a small
double-headed drum between his knees, which he was vigorously beating
in accompaniment to a “+HO+, ho, +HO+, ho, +HO+—+HE+, he, +HE+,” etc.
When I went afterward to the house of Anawita, the war-chief, to the
rehearsal described, this old fellow and Anawita were the leaders of
the songs. They were practising at that time for the Somaikoli or
Soyaita ceremony.
The Amerind is fond of singing. He sings in ceremonials, sings in camp,
bursts out in yelps as he rides across country, and the women amongst
the Pueblos sing a shrill chant while they are grinding corn. Men of
some tribes sing at times without knowing what they are singing. I
once had a Uinkarets Ute with me in Arizona, and at night this man
would build a fire a few yards from us, and sitting by it would sing
the words _Lola-my, lola-my, lola-my_ with great vigour and gusto over
and over and over again. When I asked him what the words meant, he
said he did not know, nor could he explain just why he performed thus,
but it was probably a gambling chant. Singing is used at night for
driving away evil spirits that may be near. We had four Pai Utes once
travelling with us for a number of weeks, and almost every night, along
in the middle, one would wake and begin to sing in a low voice, then a
second would join, and a third, and so on till all were engaged, their
voices rising gradually, and finally as gradually diminishing till they
ceased altogether.[287] As this performance woke us up there were
protests against it, but they were of no avail. The red men declared
they did it to drive off the “woonūpits,” or spirit of evil, and we
were forced to partake of their protection. Beginning a song low and
rising slowly is an effect often used. Fewkes mentions something of the
kind. “At the termination of this ceremonial smoke,” he says, “the four
priests nearest the bowl picked up the small gourd rattles and began
a low, rapid rattling. This continued for a few moments, and then the
priests began a song, at first low, rising gradually and increasing in
volume.” Fewkes recorded many songs by means of the phonograph. The
Harriman Expedition recorded a number of Tlinkit songs, and afterwards
some of these were reproduced for the benefit of men of the same stock
farther north, who immediately recognised the melodies and, as their
hilarity testified, enjoyed them hugely, though they had never before
heard a talking machine.
[Illustration: ZUÑI DANCE ORNAMENT
Yellow gourd with band of black and white squares. A stick is
passed through it for a handle. Generally used in social dances
]
[Illustration: MOKI NOTCHED STICK
With shoulder-blade of deer or sheep for scraping it to make noise
]
[Illustration: KWAKIUTL DOUBLE WHISTLE, WITH FOUR VOICES.]
[Illustration: THE AWL GAME]
Most Amerind songs are connected with ceremonials, and some are
imported or adopted. Ceremonials are not always sacred. Many of them
are full of amusing features intended to entertain the onlookers. The
attendance at a camp or village on a ceremonial day is for amusement as
much as anything else.
The different tribes of a locality expect to meet friends then and
enjoy social intercourse. The Amerind is fond of games, races, and all
forms of sport on which a wager can be laid. A game without a stake
would be no game at all for him. He must put up something to lose, and
I once noticed after a distribution of goods among individuals of a
certain tribe that within twenty-four hours a few had all the goods. In
modern times many Amerinds play cards. Their own games are numerous. In
the “awl game,” played chiefly by women, “the players,” according to
Mooney, “sit upon the ground around a blanket marked in charcoal with
lines and dots and quadrants in the corners as shown in illustration
on preceding page. In the centre is a stone upon which the sticks are
thrown. Each dot ... counts a point, making twenty-four points for
dots. Each of the parallel lines, and each end of the curved lines in
the corners, also counts a point, making sixteen points for the lines,
or forty points in all. The players start from the bottom, opposing
players moving in opposite directions, and with each throw of the
sticks the thrower moves her awl forward and sticks it into the blanket
at the dot or line to which her throw carries her. The parallels on
each of the four sides are called ‘rivers,’ and the dots within these
parallels do not count in the game. The rivers at the top and bottom
are ‘dangerous’ and cannot be crossed, and when the player is so
unlucky as to score a throw which brings her upon the edge of the river
(_i. e._, upon the first line of either of these pairs of parallels)
she ‘falls into the river’ and must lose all she has hitherto gained
and begin again at the start. In the same way, when a player moving
around in one direction makes a throw which brings her awl to the
place occupied by the awl of her opponent coming around from the other
side, the said opponent is ‘whipped back’ to the starting-point and
must begin all over again.... The game is played with four sticks,
each from six to ten inches long, flat on one side and round on the
other. One of these is the trump stick and is marked in a distinctive
manner in the centre on both sides, and is also distinguished by having
a green line along the flat side, while the others have each a red
line.... There are also a number of small green sticks, about the size
of lead pencils, for keeping tally. Each player in turn takes up the
four sticks together in her hand and throws them down on end upon the
stone in the centre. The number of points depends upon the number of
flat round sticks which turn up.... Only the flat sides count except
when all the sticks turn round side up. On completing one round of
forty points the player takes one of the small green tally sticks from
the pile and she who first gets the number of tally sticks previously
agreed on wins the game.”[288]
Another game, widely spread and in some respects resembling the
Mexican game of _patolli_, is thus described by Fewkes as he found it
among the Mokis[289]:
[Illustration: AMERIND GAMBLING TOOLS
Set of bone dice, Arapaho. Length, 1¾ to 2¼ in.
Set of counting sticks, Blackfeet. Length, 5½ in.
Set of plum stones, Arikaree. Diameter, ¹¹⁄₁₆ in.
]
“This game, _totolospi_, resembles somewhat the game of checkers, and
can be played by two persons or by two parties. In playing the game, a
rectangular figure divided into a large number of squares is drawn upon
a rock, either by scratching or by using a different-coloured stone as
a crayon. A diagonal line, _tuhkiota_, is drawn across the rectangle
from north-east to south-west, and the players station themselves at
each end of this line. When two parties play, a single person acts as
player, and the other members of the party act as advisers. The first
play is won by tossing up a leaf or corn husk with one side blackened.
The pieces which are used are bean or corn kernels, stones and wood,
or small fragments of any substance of marked colour. The players are
stationed at each end of the diagonal line, _tuhkiota_. They move their
pieces upon this line but never across it. The moves which are made
are intricate and the player may move one or more pieces successively.
Certain positions entitle him to this privilege. He may capture or, as
he terms it, kill one or more of his opponent’s pieces at one play. In
this respect the game is not unlike checkers, and to capture the pieces
of the opponent seems to be the main object of the game.”
Horse-racing is a great sport among all Amerinds and much valuable
property changes hands on these occasions. There are also foot races.
Anything they can bet on constitutes a game, and they are much like
many white men in this respect. Arrows are shot into the air to see
who can shoot out of sight, or they are shot at a mark and dexterous
archers try to split the shaft of the preceding shooter. Or they
throw arrows or bows over the ground or the snow to see who can throw
farthest. In this line the Iroquois had the game known as “snow snake,”
wherein a specially formed stick was caused to glide over the snow or
ice. The Arapahos used for a similar purpose slender willow rods about
four feet long peeled and painted and tipped with a point of buffalo
horn. This is swung from one end like a pendulum and then let fly with
a sweeping motion.
Among the Pai Utes a common gambling game was played by four men
sitting down in two rows opposite each other, that is, two on a side,
and about five feet apart. In front of each side was a row of little
sticks placed diagonally in sand heaped up, the ends sticking out
toward the side to which the lot belonged. Two bits of bone formed the
pieces, one being plain and the other having a buckskin string around
it. These pieces were about two and a half inches long, tapering toward
their ends. The leader of one side tosses both pieces into the air
and, catching them, crosses his arms, pressing the fists against each
shoulder. The point is for the other side to guess in which hand is
the piece that is marked with the string, and the diagonally opposite
player chooses. He does not at once indicate a choice, but sways his
body back and forth, his right hand extended and waving to and fro
across the opponent’s breast, and slapping his own chest, all the while
fiercely uttering a gambling song. Finally he would point directly at
the hand he chose, and if his guess were correct he received a tally
stick, if not, the other side got one. The side that wins all the
tally sticks is victor and carries off the stakes, which are usually
put on the ground at one end of the group. This is something like the
“hunt the button” game of the prairie tribes described by Mooney.[290]
“It is the regular game in the long winter nights after the scattered
families have abandoned their exposed summer positions on the open
prairie and moved down near one another in the shelter of the timber
along the streams.... The players sit in a circle around the tipi fire,
those on one side of the fire playing against those on the other. The
only requisites are the ‘button,’ usually a small bit of wood, around
which is tied a piece of string or otter skin, with a pile of tally
sticks.... Each party has a button, that of one side being painted
black, the other being red. The leader of one party takes up the button
and endeavours to move it from one hand to the other, or pass it on to
a partner, while those of the opposite side keep a sharp lookout and
try to guess in which hand it is.” This game is played by both sexes
but never together.
Still another game which was a great favourite all over the country,
and is yet, especially among the women, is the “plum stone” or dice
game. Five or six dice made of bone or plum stones, a small bowl or
basket, and the usual tally sticks are the implements. Two of the dice
are alike in shape and marking, while the others are different from
these but like each other. The dice are tossed up and the count made
according to the way the marks and blanks fall.
[Illustration: TERRA COTTA RATTLE FROM CHIRIQUI]
The camps and villages are particularly lively in winter, when there
is not much to do in the way of hunting, farming, or fishing. The
sound of the drum, gambling songs, and rattles make the evening merry
where the village is one of skin tipis or other light structures, but
among the Pueblos the walls of the houses are so thick that sounds
do not easily come through. The great drum is penetrating and its
deep “bum-bum-bum” could be heard vibrating on the winter air, but
other sounds were muffled or extinguished altogether by the walls.
One moonlight evening when I arrived before the town of Oraibi, about
eight o’clock, not a single sound was distinguishable, and to judge
by appearances, the place was a deserted ruin, till the dogs got a
sniff of our approach and then pandemonium ruled so far as they were
concerned. Many tribes have an assembly house, where there are various
congregations in the winter evenings, to sing and to dance. Among the
Pueblos these congregations, when there are women or girls involved,
take place in an ordinary dwelling; the kiva, which is council room,
club, and society lodge, seldom being open to women. An orchestra that
performed in a Kabinapek assembly hall described by Stephen Powers is
worth mentioning. “The orchestra, eight in number, all young men, were
squatted together opposite the entrance, four facing four. Between them
was a hollow slab, serving as a kind of drum to be beaten by a drummer
with the naked foot, and each of them held in his right hand a little
stick, split half way down, to be used as a clapper in keeping time.
The dancers were all young women, who stood in a curved row in front
of the orchestra.” This orchestra sang a chorus accompanied by the
clappers they held. “Like everything they sung it has no meaning. They
all sung in a high falsetto voice, the women especially, so that they
were less agreeable to listen to than the men. The sharp monotonous
clacking of the sticks and the dull tunk, tunk of the slab drum were
execrable.” He states that they kept perfect time, however, and also
that “there was one short passage in this chorus which when chanted
by the men alone was one of the most moving I ever heard. These three
rude, barbaric, and wholly unintelligible syllables, hu-di-go, were
trilled and prolonged out with a sweet, soft, and wild melodiousness
that I shall not forget to my dying hour.”[291]
The Eskimo, despite the severity of their surroundings, are a merry
people, and have many diversions. Football, strange to say, is a
favourite pastime, but neither their method nor their ball would pass
muster with a college expert. The ball is a pudgy affair from three to
seven inches in diameter, and is either kicked or whipped along. The
whip is a short stick with several loops of seal thong at the end. The
game, according to Turner, is a favourite with all. Throwing stones at
a mark is also a pastime. Another is a kind of wrestling or struggling
with each other, such as is in vogue with almost all the tribes of the
continent. Turner says: “The opponents remove all their superfluous
garments, seize each other around the waist and lock hands behind each
other’s backs. The feet are spread widely apart and each endeavours to
draw, by the strength of the arms alone, the back of his opponent into
a curve and thus bring him off his feet. Then with a lift he is quickly
thrown flat on his back. The fall must be such that the head touches
the ground.... The feet are never used for tripping.”[292]
Anything like scientific boxing is unknown among the tribes of the
continent. When they try anything of this sort it is a mere clawing
at each other’s heads, and one professional pugilist, if fists alone
were used, could knock out a whole tribe. Among the Hudson Bay Eskimo,
a popular game is played by trying to catch, on the end of an ivory
point, an ivory piece that looks something like a stumpy revolver. A
string is attached to it and to the ivory point, and the game is to
throw up the piece and cause the point to enter one of the holes and
catch it. Cards, such as we have, are known to almost all tribes, and
where they have not learned games from the whites they invent some of
their own.
Ball games of various kinds were played and the Canadian game called
_lacrosse_ is of Amerind origin. Parkman in his _Pontiac_ vividly
describes one of these lacrosse games used in strategy to gain entrance
to an English fort. “The plain in front was covered by the ball
players. The game in which they were engaged, called _baggattaway_ by
the Ojibwas, is still, as it always has been, a favourite with many
Indian tribes. At either extremity of the ground, a tall post was
planted, marking the stations of the rival parties. The object of each
was to defend its own post and drive the ball to that of its adversary.
Hundreds of lithe and agile figures were leaping and bounding upon the
plain. Each was nearly naked, his loose black hair flying in the wind,
and each bore in his hand a bat of a form peculiar to this game. At one
moment the whole were crowded together, a dense throng of combatants
all struggling for the ball; at the next they were scattered again,
and running over the ground like hounds in full cry. Each, in his
excitement, yelled and shouted at the height of his voice. Rushing and
striking, tripping their adversaries, or hurling them to the ground,
they pursued the animated contest amid the laughter and applause of the
spectators.”
[Illustration: CAT-SHAPED WHISTLE OF TERRA COTTA, CHIRIQUI]
In Central America, a form of tennis was in vogue and stone courts
where the game was played have been found and described by some of our
modern archæologists.
[Illustration: MANDAN GAME OF TCHUNGKEE
George Catlin
]
I never saw any ball playing amongst the Uinkarets, Shevwits, or other
Amerinds of the northern Arizona-southern Nevada region. They all
appeared to be deficient in games, at the time I was first among them,
not knowing what our playing-cards were, and having even no games of
exterior origin. There were flat pieces of cedar bark, painted with
red stripes, said by some to have been used like dice, but I never saw
them engaged in playing with them. The children used a flat piece of
bark as a doll, and most Amerind children play with dolls made of wood,
terra cotta, and other materials.[293] The small boys devote themselves
to the bow and arrow for amusement in many tribes, and they will go
out in the woods, or on the plain, and bring down small birds and mice
with considerable skill. The whip-top, made of wood, is a favourite
everywhere, especially among the Moki boys, whose life on the barren
mesas precludes much hunting with bow and arrow. The children also beat
the drum for fun.
Horse-racing is a sport in which many tribes, especially those of
the plains, are past masters. The Pueblos, particularly the Mokis,
owing to their sedentary life, have less opportunity to develop in
this line, but the Navajos, Sioux, Crows, Blackfeet, and Comanches
have little to learn about rough-and-ready racing. It goes without
saying that the Eskimo, Aleuts, Tlinkits, Haidas, and other North-west
tribes, whose range of life is on and by the sea, have no knowledge
of handling horses. They never adopted the horse, because it was as
useless to them as an elephant or a hippopotamus. But to the plains
tribes this animal came like a gift from the gods, and they appreciated
it fully, and horses became their standard of wealth. Some tribes, like
the Kaivavits, Uinkarets, and Shevwits Utes of northern Arizona have
never possessed many horses because of their poverty, but there were
always a goodly number owned, and horse-racing was a great amusement
with them, as well as with those tribes which counted their horses
by the thousand. Dodge describes an amusing race that took place
near Fort Chadbourne, Texas, between a horse of a Comanche chief and
three horses of the officers of the garrison, which illustrates the
Amerind cleverness in the jockeying line.[294] It took several days
of manœuvring to bring the chief to the point, and then a race was
arranged with the third best horse of the white men. The distance was
four hundred yards, and property to the amount of sixty dollars a side
was wagered on the result. “At the appointed time all the Indians and
most of the garrison were assembled at the track. The Indians ‘showed’
a miserable sheep of a pony with legs like churns; a three-inch coat
of rough hair stuck out all over the body, and a general expression
of neglect, helplessness, and patient suffering struck pity into the
hearts of all beholders. The rider was a stalwart buck of one hundred
and seventy pounds, looking big and strong enough to carry the poor
beast on his shoulders. He was armed with a huge club, with which,
after the word was given, he belabored the miserable animal from start
to finish. To the astonishment of all the whites, the Indian won by
a neck. Another race was proposed by the officers and, after much
‘dickering,’ accepted by the Indians, against the next best horse of
the garrison. The bets were doubled, and in less than an hour the
second race was run by the same pony, with the same apparent exertion
and with exactly the same result. The officers, thoroughly disgusted,
proposed a third race, and brought to the ground a magnificent Kentucky
mare, of the true Lexington blood, and known to beat the best of the
others at least forty yards in four hundred. The Indians accepted the
race, and not only doubled the bets as before, but piled up everything
they could raise, seemingly almost crazed with the excitement of their
previous success. The riders mounted; the word was given. Throwing away
his club, the Indian rider gave a whoop, at which the sheep-like pony
pricked up his ears and went away like the wind, almost two feet to the
mare’s one. The last fifty yards of the course were run by the pony
with the rider sitting face to his tail, making hideous grimaces, and
beckoning to the rider of the mare to come on. It afterwards transpired
that the old sheep was a trick and straight pony, celebrated among all
the tribes of the South.” Yet some people think the Amerind has no
sense of humour.
[Illustration: DOUBLE WHISTLE IN TERRA COTTA FROM CHIRIQUI]
Story telling is another amusement, and a good story teller, says
Dodge, is a man of importance. “The bucks, and squaws, and children
crowd to his lodge, or any other where he happens to be, and spend the
long winter evenings listening to his recitals. These stories are as
marvellous as the imagination of the teller can create, jumbling gods
and men, fabulous and living animals, the impossible and the possible
in the most heterogeneous confusion.”[295]
The Navajos, or at least some of them, have considerable dramatic
sense. On one occasion, when some Navajos camped near us, one of them
gave an exhibition of character delineation that would have done credit
to a professional actor. Choosing a large bush nearby as a screen for
his costuming, he came out to the fire successively representing the
various nationalities with which he was familiar. Some of these were
extremely well done. The Pai Ute, for instance, is poor in clothing
and always begging. Our actor took off all his clothing but the
breech-cloth, approached the fire timidly and cringingly, and crouched
down beside it, drawing the back of his hand across his nose with an
accompanying sniffle, and exclaimed in Pai Ute: _Tabac ashanty_ (I want
some tobacco). Another was the American, who stepped nervously to the
fire, and restlessly turned first front, then back, extended his hands,
rubbing them over the heat; held up first one foot, then the other, and
so on. These impersonations were full of the character of the types
indicated. The exhibition finally culminated in a representation of the
characteristics of his own people. Retiring once again behind the bush,
he at last appeared with his full costume on, carefully adjusted. His
head bore a red turban, his shirt was held by a fine belt, his broad
Navajo trousers met at the knee the red buckskin leggings, ornamented
with silver buttons, and his feet were protected by moccasins finely
wrought, held by silver buttons. About his shoulders was a fine blanket
of Navajo make, and across his back a large bow and its arrows in a
panther-skin case and quiver. Approaching the fire with a measured,
haughty tread, head erect and folded arms, he paused majestically
before it, straightened to his full height, and in a deep, dignified
tone spoke the single word, “Navajo.”
[Illustration: SET OF STAVES FOR GAME
The lowest shows obverse of one above. Length, 5½ in.
]
[Illustration: “BANNER-STONE,” TENNESSEE]