The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1909-07-21

these little ping-pong affairs are pink n
teas as compared to the noble game
of ball as played by the Talledega
red men. II
The ball was of buckskin and
weighed about eight ounces. 1t was
tossed up in the center of the field by
the challenging side. and the first man
to the ball had the right to throw it
The women were on the side lines
with vessels of water and wine,
watching every opportunity of assist !
ing the men of their respective town. |
When a player had seized the ball |
with his hurl it was legal to use every
means to prevent him from throwing
it, and the old football tactics of pill
ing up on top of the man with the
ball was ancient history to these saw
age husky men. Often a man was hurt,
and sometimes killed in the excite
ment of the game, but little thing
like that did not stop these scrappers
a minute when their blood was up.
Umpires were selected from disinter-
ested tribes, but then, as now, the UNI
pire had but little show with 100 men
maddened by the lust of battle, and a
thousand clamoring partizans on both
sides, and it was a very tame game
whe re the umpire was not mobbed. An
Indian who wouldn't play ball with the
honor and entire property of his town
at stake, and his sweetheart helping
him on the sidelines wasn't fit to
wear a scalp. An old settler might be
trifle Indifferent and prosy on lis
torical matters connected with the
aborigines, but when he fairly got
under way describing an Indian ball
game, it was then he alertly imbibed
another toddy, shifted his quid of to
bacco and broke into strain of battle
and blood calculated to make the eyes
of the most apathetic bulge out like
buttons on a tight jacket.
The great business of the lives of
these simple people was to procure
food and devour it, to pursue enemies
and scalp them and to play ball and
win. Nothing but victory was ever
satisfactory to him, the reason why
his tribe did not win was a secondary
consideration, the only question he
wanted answered was Did we VIM"
The races of Marathon and the
ancient Greek games had press agents.
Wires run into the ground and are
ablaze with each run rgoal during |
the ball games of modern times, but |
in these titantic struggles an i'm
poverished tribe, or a ruined nation |
was the only memorial left of a strug- |
gle with giants ON the field of glory.
The players were all naked except a |
flap, or loin cloth, tied around the mid |
die with a red hide thong. The body |
creased with hickory nut |
oil, so that it would be difficult for !
the opposition players to seize and |
hold the man who was trying to throw |
he ball. A creased Indian in a ball
game would be about as hard to hold |
as an oiled eel getting through but
-ered sugar hole.
The hoop-net, or racket, had a
wooden handle, and the MEETINGS at
the scoop end were rawhide, or the
Lendons of deer, the end holding the
ball shaped something like an ordin-
airy dipper When the ball was caught
in one of these rackets, the other was
placed against and over it
to prevent the ball from falling out of
this half sphere, just as the baseball
catcher uses the glove and mitt at this
day.
The old-fashioned game of Shiny
was a modification of the Indian ball
game. so also is the modern ball game
Of La Crosse almost an exact copy.
The women were never permitted to
take an active part in the game. 1t
was monopolized by the men.