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 (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.
----Drummer,
Choir
