Genealogy Records
Biographies
Cemetery Records
Census Records
Free Family Tree Website
History Books Online
Military Records
Native American Records
Surnames
United States Genealogy
Vital Records
World Genealogy

Free Indian Records
Index and Database of Rolls
Indian Cemeteries
Indian Census Records
Indian Chiefs
Indian History
Indian Stories, Myths and Legends
Indian Tribe Listings
Indian Tribes and Nations, 1880
Indian Tribes by Location
Native American Books
Native American Land Patents
Native American Queries
South East Research
Treaties with the Indians
Tribal Mailing Lists
How to Search
How to Register

Native American Research

Dawes: Getting Organized
Indian Tribes of the Frontier
Your American Indian Ancestors
Indian Reservations, 1840
Indian Reservations, 1875
Indian Reservations, 1900
Indian Reservations, 1930
Early Native American Tribes and Culture Areas

$ Ancestry.com Indian Records $
Free Trial - Ancestry.com US Deluxe Membership
1900 Indian Territory Census

Dawes Commission Index, 1896
The Dawes Commission Allotment
Cherokee Connections
History of the Cherokee Indians
Indian Deeds: In Plymouth Colony
The Indian Tribes of North America
Henry Schoolcraft, With the Indians
Minnesota Native Americans, 1823
Minnesota Native Americans, 1851
Nebraska Pawnee Scouts, 1861-69
Oklahoma Osage Tribe Roll, 1921
B. D. Wilson, Report on CA Indians 
Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties


While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!

 

 

 

Hand-Game, Racing

     Hand-game (kanidano'tsuisa, they are going to have a hand-game) may be played at any time, indoors. It is played by men and women, mixed, not sex against sex. A drummer and choir sit on the west side, likewise the score keeper, the two rows of players, north and south (Fig. 1). The score keeper hands the two little bones to the two players nearest him in the north row, a bone to each. The player opposite in the south row has to guess which hand the bone is in, the player with the bone keeping both hands in motion, crisscrossing. If the hand is guessed, the player lays the bone down in front. Then the second bone holder is guessed over by the player opposite. If the guesser fails, the first bone holder gets his bone back; if the guesser succeeds, both bones are given by the score keeper to the two first players in the south row to be guessed over. For every failure to guess, one of the six

N

º      º      º      º      º      º      º       º       º
Players

                        º-------Scorekeeper

 

----Drummer, Choir

Players
º     º      º      º      º      º      º      º      º

Fig. 1. Positions in hand-game

tally sticks passes to the player not guessed. Tallies and bones pass on down the lines, the play progressing by successive couples, tallies as well as bones crossing from row to row, e.g. when the second couple in the north row is being guessed by the couple opposite with success, the tallies held by the first couple in the north row pass over to the successful guessers in the south row. When one row holds all six tallies, the game is won. There may be any number of players, from a dozen to fifty. They play seated.140

     Foot races are run during the assembly for the Ghost dance, some time in August. The chief, Enoch Hoag, is the organizer. Before dawn he goes out and calls for the race. He hangs up two large gourds with beads inside141 on a small pole,142 to which from a distance of about three hundred yards the runners sprint. The winner gets the gourds to set off with in the long race to follow. Whoever overtakes him, takes from him the gourds, since whoever is in the lead has to carry the gourds.143 The goal of the race of several miles -nowadays about ten, formerly from forty to fifty-is at the dancing grounds. Lookers-on follow on horseback, whooping. Women used to ride out, too, mothers riding to encourage their sons to stay in to the finish. One man is appointed to keep the equestrians on the side from which the smell of the horses will not reach the runners, for it is believed that horse smell will weaken them. There may be from twenty-five to thirty runners, including older men, although many run only in the initial sprint. Formerly there was gambling on the race. The race is non-ceremonial, merely as practice in carrying messages, to keep fit. However, there is racing medicine (Ingkanish).

     A male infant may be put out near the end of the race track to have the winner pass his foot over him, that he in turn may become a good runner.

     The following story about horse racing was told White Moon by his step-grandfather (Gen. II, 18), Tom Williams, the "old man" in the story.

     In early days when they had the North and South fight [Civil War] three Indians were scattered. They were hitting for Kansas, they camped. Next morning they went hunting. They couldn't find anything; they killed a young steer. That night they made a fire and were roasting some ribs. They heard a horse, they jumped up, they saw a White man, they got out their guns. The man held up his hands, rode up, and got off. One Indian wanted to kill him anyway, thinking he was the owner of the steer. The White man said by signs he was hungry. He had hardly any clothes on; it was in the fall of the year, pitiful. Still the Indian wanted to kill him. That night every time the Indian raised up his head, the others watched him to protect the White man. At daybreak all got up, they had breakfast together. The White man, the cowboy, was riding a very poor horse, all skin and bones. They understood that he wanted to trade horses, he was going somewhere. The old man said he had a wild horse, he took the cowboy down to him, said he would trade. Agreed. The cowboy got on the horse, the horse began to run; way down the valley the horse kept on running.
     The old man kept the horse, the horse began to pick up, got heavier. As they were going through a village, people were horse racing. The three raced their horses and lost some races. The old man rode his horse one day, thought it was a pretty good runner, said to these Indians he would bet ten horses and run them a half a mile. So they went up to the line and started. At first they left him at the start. After a hundred yards the horse began to gain. About seventy-five yards to the finish he caught up to them and beat them by five yards. That way he won some horses.'" After that he took care of the horse as a race horse and won all the races.

_____________________________________________________
140 Voegelin saw Ioway and Oto play this same sort of hand-game, in 1938. Compare Grinnell's account of hand-game as played by Pawnee, and Dorsey's account of it as played by Wichita, in Culin, 276, 279-280.
l4l No ritual attaches to these undecorated gourds. Anybody may loan for the race the gourds he happens to have.
142 Cp. Joutel, 354.
143 Compare Hopi race pattern.
144 At an earlier period Caddo like other tribes raided for horses (Joutel, 352-353). And again as among other tribes horse racing appears as a substitute of a kind for horse raiding.

Back | Next

The books presented are for their historical value only and are not the opinions of the Webmasters of the site.

Notes on the Caddo

Notes on the Caddo

 


  Add/correct a link

Submit Genealogy Data

  Join GenGuide

Comments


Copyright 2004-2008, by Access Genealogy.com