The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1945-04-19

The Button Neacs presents
another IN the series Of unusual
ond interesting aspects Of South
America.
Sports and games are undoubtedly
one of the common denominators OF
all countries and the world at play
has practically no feeling of national
differentiation. When a little Latin
American tries to catch a ball in
Costa Rica, for instance, he probably
does SO very much in the same way
rs a North American child would IN
the United States.
However, the rules and forms in
which games are played differ often
according to regions and some sports
may be definitely classified as being
native to one country in particular.
One of the earliest games on the
Western Hemispheres must have
been a certain ball game played by
the Mayans and later by the Aztecs.
The ball, when in play, was not
thrown with the hand but struck by
the hip, around which the player
wore a protective pad of leather.
AT each end of the court was a
great stone disk with a hole in the
center and through this orifice the
ball was driven before point was
scored. Very naturally live BALI
was used, since rubber trees dominat-
ed the forests.
Not amateurs but professionals
usually took part in those contests
which sometimes lasted as much as
four hours.
Ball courts of this type have been
discovered in Yucatan near ruins OF
temples and other relics of Mayan
civilization, and traces of it seem to
have been found in the West Indies.
Some of the wild tribes of the in
terror of Brazil have a ball game of
their own that closely resembles our
badminton. The rubber balls that
the players strike with their hands
have-just like shuttle-cocks-feath-
ers affixed to them for greater ac-
curacy. The Indians generally in
dulge in this game at their return
from the days fishing or hunting
and the end of the period of play
is marked invariably by sunset.
Again a different variety of ball
game is played by the Araucanian
Indians of Chile. There, of course,
we are no longer within the rubber
tree zone so the ball becomes a
wooden one and the game-the
"chueca"-is similar to la crosse or
field hockey.
In primitive times, this was some
times considered training for war
in which the members of the Arau-
canian tribes brandished very
heavy club, the famous "maza arau-
cana.
To train warriors to avoid the ar
rows and spears of the enemies was
also, to a certain extent, the object
of another Araucanian traditional
game: "pilma". In this, two players
stand several feet apart and one
tries to hit the other with light
fiber ball, his opponent endeavoring
to dodge the ball by leaping, falling
to the ground, etc.
Every five balls the position is re-
versed and the player securing the
first twenty hits is the winner Spec
tators surrounding the contestants
return the ball to the server, show
ing great appreciation of skillful
play.
A certain type of bone dice is
known to have been used by South
American Indians in an indigenous
game, while another local pastime of
the natives is the use of "bola" or
''boleadora" to pursue wild ostriches.
These animals are lassoed by
U1EdllS VI q L elA 0ih5~AANAiS "a
two or three rawhide covered balls
with connecting ropes of hide.
The arrival of the horse in the
Western Hemisphere prompted a SER
les of games of cowboy type espe-
cially in southern South America
where the boleadora was soon tried
on the equine species
There was enough danger in this
sport to thrill even gaucho's adj
venturous heart, but it was hard or
horsefesh. Even today when the
maiordomo, or superintendent of the
estancia, is not looking, the gauchos
are at it again, bolas whirling, horses
and horsemen rolling in the dust
Another popular Latin American
game in which the horse takes part
is the "topeo'. Played in front oi
wooden crossbars, the game consists
of having one horseman press hi