University of Virginia Library

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14

PLATE No. 23.

AN INDIAN BALL-PLAY.

Having in the two former illustrations and their chapters, explained to the readers the costume and preliminaries of the Ball-play. I here introduce them to the ball-play
ground, where five or six hundred youths, with chastened and oiled limbs, and with empty stomachs, as I have described, are met upon the ground and actually engaged in the
play. And here I must falter; and faltering, must apologise for the weakness of my pencil in endeavoring to portray a scene like this. And yet in a little kindness to my own
pencil, I would now venture the opinion that scenes like these, with hundreds, and sometimes with thousands, of these proud and emulous youths, with their graceful and denuded
limbs, darting and almost flying over the enamelled prairies, are entirely beyond the reach of art, and the players, in their beautiful gambols and varied leaps for the ball, afford
models for the painter or sculptor, equal to those that inspired the hand and soul of the artist, in the Olympian Games or the Roman Forum.

At the hour of the morning designated for the commencement of the play, the young men, having completed their dancing, appeared on the ground, each with ball-sticks in
his hands, and in all other respects prepared for the play, which commenced, about nine o'clock, by the old men, the judges of the play, throwing up the ball, at the firing of a
gun, exactly at the point half-way between the two byes, around which were stationed an equal number of players from each side, who instantly commenced the scuffle for the
ball as it descended; each party endeavoring to catch it between their ball-sticks and to throw it through their own goal, which, when successfully done, counted one for the
game. Around either bye, also, there were placed a numerous party of each side; the one endeavoring to force the ball through, and the other doing their utmost to resist and
drive it back to their own side of the ground.

In the illustration here given, I have endeavored to represent the play at the moment when the ball has been thrown, and is falling beyond the bye, where the players are
assembling in a mass to meet it as it falls. The game is generally one hundred; and owing to the great difficulty of getting the ball home and passing it through their byes with
so many to resist it, each of these struggles occupies some time for its decision, and consequently the game continues the most (and sometimes the whole) of the day, before it is
decided; and each party at the number of 95 being allowed to "set the game" to a higher number, often adds much to its tedious length. Whenever the ball is passed through
the byes of either party it is announced all over the ground by a simultaneous bark or yelp; and the ball is thrown "home" to the judges, who start it again from the centre,
when similar successive struggles and excitements instantly ensue, allowing the players but one minute or so to rest.

In the play here represented, every player was dressed alike; i. e. divested of all dress except the girdle and the tail before described, and the devices which they had
painted upon their naked limbs, beautifully diversified with white and red clay. In the midst of these almost inconceivable scuffles and struggles for the ball, when they are
tripping, and throwing, and foiling each other in every possible manner, the women are occasionally seen taking an active part in the play, although they are not allowed to use
the ball-stick, it being too sacred on that day even for their touch. Their mode of joining in the play, however, is this: each woman who has her goods at stake, and thereby
a direct interest in the play, is permitted to use all the stimulant to the scene that lies in her power, in the only mode allowed her on the occasion. She goes to the woods,
and having procured a bunch of whips some two or three feet in length, which she ties together at the butt ends, and carries in her right hand, she adjusts her dress for running,
so that she has the free use of her nether limbs: and the moment the ball is started, she sets off in the darting throng—yelling and screaming as she runs—following up her
husband, who is in search of the ball; and at every moment in the day when she can overtake him, while she reminds him of the value of their goods that are at stake and
of the importance of exerting every nerve to protect them, she lashes him over the naked shoulders, and often to that degree that the blood will be seen trickling down over his
back, drawn in the affectionate hints thus given him by his wife, lest he should forget to exert himself to the fullest extent, for the manly protection of their mutual interest, by
desperately playing to save their property at stake.

The Indian communities in America are perhaps the last of all on earth in which a woman would undertake to beat her husband; but by the custom of all tribes, on
the occasion of a ball-play, the women who have goods at stake, and whose husbands are engaged in the play, have the privilege allowed them of chastising their husbands as
severely as they please, whenever they can overtake them, giving additional stimulant to their exertions (whilst they are led on by a high ambition for fame and the world's
goods), by driving them on with the lash, which is dealt out without mercy, by the most cruel and unsparing hands.

By the same custom of the country, also, which gives the woman this privilege, she is protected; the husband who would resent superfluous blows on this occasion would
be branded with perpetual disgrace; and when they come, his only way to avoid them is to rush forward for the ball, and effect his escape by playing the most desperate
game. To this second stimulus in the play, which is continually upon the tracks of the players, and keeping them constantly in motion, may be in a great measure attributed
that indescribable excitement and action which we witness in these scenes: and, from the fury-like manner in which the wife is often seen following up and flagellating her
husband, one easily and naturally imagines (as probably is often the case) that the poor woman, who has this privilege but seldom in her life, may be making the most of it, as
the means of settling up some old standing account between herself and her husband, which she has no other mode of liquidating, and to which he most quietly submit, unless he
keeps out of her way.

Such I offer as a feeble description of this beautiful and exciting game; and merely further observe, that such are its fascinations amongst the various tribes, and so highly
is it prized by them, that in each and every tribe, there are, as well as aspirants for fame in war and in the chase, those whose hearts throb only for the envied notoriety of
being reputed the most distinguished ball-players in the tribe; and for that distinction, ready to hazard their lives as freely as in the vicissitudes of battle. The three portraits
in Plate No. 21, and which I have already described, were all of young men of this stamp, who seemed to be ambitious for little else than the reputation of being first of their
tribes, in the game of ball: and the second figure in the plate is peculiarly a good illustration of the assertion here made. This young man, Wee-chush-ta-doo-ta (The Red
Man), whose portrait I painted after he had played in a desperate game at the Falls of St. Anthony, reputed the most determined and successful player of the Sioux tribe, has,
as I was informed by the chiefs, for several of the last games he has been engaged in, taken the most solemn oath, whilst entering upon the play, that he would not survive if
his side were to be beaten; thus desperately resolving to leave the ground, exulting in victory, or to leave his lifeless body upon it, a sacrifice by his own hand and his own
knife: and I have not a doubt of the certain execution of his stern resolve in such an event.