The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1914-08-05
ROOSEVELT TELLS
OF QUEER CAME
How Indians In Brazil Play
Football With Their Heads.
HANDS KEPT OFF THE BALL


Chances of Personal Injury Amazes
the Uninitiated onIookers ~ Colonel
Describes Extraordinary Spiders.
lFrom Colonel Roosevelts fifth article
describing his journey in the Brazilian /
wilderness in Scribner's Magazine for Au-
gust, 1914. Copyright, 1914, by Charles
Scribner's Sons
A unique game of football, played |
with the head by the Parcels Indians, |
is one of the unusual things described |
by the colonel He writes as follows
These Parcels Indians enthusiastic
cally play football with their heads.
The game is not only native to them,
but have never heard or read of its
being played by any other tribe or
people. They use a light hollow rub
Der ball of their own manufacture 1t
is circular and about eight inches in
diameter.
The players are divided into two
sides and stationed much as in as
ISOLATION football, and the ball If
| placed on the ground to be put in play
as in football Chen a player runs
forward, throws himself fat on the
! ground and butts the ball toward the
opposite side.
| A Remarkable Performance.
| This first butt, when the ball is on
| the ground, never lifts it much, and it
rolls and bounds toward the OPP
| ponents. One or two of the latter run
/ toward it; one throws himself fat on
his face and butts the ball back.
Usually this butt lifts it, and it flies
back In curve well up in the air,
and an opposite player, rushing toward
| it, catches 1t on his head with such a
swing Of his brawny neck and such
precision and address that the ball
bounds back through the air as a foot
ball scars after n drop kick.
If the ball flies off to one side or the
other it is brought back and again
put In play. Often it will be sent to
and fro dozen times, from head to
head, until finally il rises with such
sweep that it passes far over the
heads of the opposite players and
descends behind them. Then shrill,
rolling cries of good humored triumph
arise from the yictors, and the game
instantly begins again with fresh Zest.
There are, of course. no such rules
as in a specialized ball game of civil
lization, and l saw no disputes. There
may be eight or ten or many more
players on each side. The ball is
never touched with the hands or feet
or with anything except the top of the
head. 1t is hard to decide whether to
wonder most at the dexterity and
strength with which it is hit or butted
with the head as it comes down
through the air or at the reckless
speed and skill with which the play
, ers throw themselves headlong on the
ground to return the ball if it comes
low down. Why they do not grind of
their noses 1 cannot imagine.
Wonderful Colony of Spiders.
We came across many queer insects
, One red grasshopper when it few
| seemed as big as a small sparrow, and
, we passed in some places such multi
tudes of active little green grasshop
: pers that they frightened the mules
! At our camping place we saw an ex
! traordinary colony of spiders. 1t wa:
, among some dwarf trees, standing {
] few yards apart from one another by
! the water.
, When we reached the camping place
early in the afternoon-the pack trail
did not get in until nearly sunset, jus
ahead of the rain-nO spiders Wer
, out. They We're under the leaves o
> the trees Their webs were tenantles
= and indeed for the most part wer
broken down. But at dusk they cam
out from their hiding places, two Q
three hundred of them in ALL and a
once began to repair the old and spil
new webs. Each spun its own circula
web and sat In the middle, and eac
web was connected on several side
with other webs. while those neares
the trees were hung to them by spu
ropes. 50 to speak.
The result was a kind of sheet Q
web consisting of scores of wheels, j
each of which the owner and pre-
i prietor sat, and there were half
& dozen such sheets, each extending b.
Il tween two trees. The webs coul
E hardly be seen, and the effect was {
3 scores of big, formidable lookin
q spiders poised in midair, equidistaI
4 from one another between each pa
a of trees.
8 When darkness and rain fell the
8 We're still out fixing their webs al
Il bouncing on the occasional insec
Il that Numbered into the webs. | hay
h no question that they are nocturnal
b they certainly hide in the daytime, an
II seems impossible that they can con
g out only for a few minutes at dusk.