Gummed Stone Footballs
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1885
label: Collection Date
content: 1885
name: label: Collector
content: Dr. Edward Palmer
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "One. Illus: Hndbk. of N. Amer. Indians, Vol. 10, Southwest, Fig. 8, pg. 191." Identified there as ball used in men's races; kicked with bare foot while running. 2 balls illus. Fig. 894, p. 675 in "Games of the North American Indians" by Stewart Culin, BAE 24th Annual Report. Identified there as two stone kicking balls, consisting of tufa, covered with some black vegetable substance, probably mesquite gum; diameters 2 1/8 and 2 3/8 inches; used in ball race game. See also NMNH Department of Botany Edward Palmer collections web exhibit page on this artifact: http://botany.si.edu/colls/palmer/narrative_page.cfm?Narr=15&locality= . Identified there as: "The balls are made of a stone or wood core and a coating of lac, a resin produced by the insect Tachardiella larrea.The balls are approximately seven centimeters in diameter, roughly the size of a croquet ball." "These balls were used as pacing devices for travel. Using their bare feet, Akimel O'odham men flipped these balls in the air to keep pace over running treks commonly covering twenty or thirty miles (Bahr, 1983). The men preferred running to walking as a form of locomotion and "habitually kept [the ball] in motion while traveling mostly 'to keep in practice. . . for races' (Bahr, 1983). These balls became symbolic of man's daily travels and in early reports, Akimel O'odham men declared they could run faster with the balls. Two youths would sometimes run long distances together, first one and then the other kicking the ball so that the ball was almost constantly in the air (Russell 1908). At the turn of the century, the custom of using these balls rapidly disappeared, as did other Piman games (Russell 1908)."
label: Record Last Modified
content: 7 Jul 2021
label: Specimen Count
content: 2
place: label: Place
content: Arizona, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Pima (Akimel O'odham; Akimel O'otham)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 015930
label: USNM Number
content: E76014-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Ball