Tim Roufs |
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When Everybody Called
Me Gabe-bines,
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"This project has been financed in part with funds provided by the State of Minnesota from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the Minnesota Historical Society." "This publication was made possible in part by the people of Minnesota through a grant funded by an appropriation to the Minnesota Historical Society from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Any views, findings, opinions, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the State of Minnesota, the Minnesota Historical Society, or the Minnesota Historic Resources Advisory Committee." |
 Group of Native American men playing moccasin games, not earlier than 1926 or later than 1959. Photographer: : Frances Theresa Densmore Photograph Collection, 1933 Collections Online Minnesota Historical Society Identifiers: Reserve Album 243, page 60 Accession Number AV1981.193.600 |
Whenever we got together with other Indians
in years back the men played moccasin game, and the women and the children
enjoyed listening to them and watching them play. Years ago some people
even went without meals to play moccasin games. We call it b^ss-kway-gI'n-áa^-taa$-gay,
that's "he bets, on the moccasin." These moccasin games were quite a game,
and were very interesting. In my time the old people were great gamblers
and they generally would bet on anything, but especially on the moccasin
game. |
We used to play the moccasin game over and over. It's
a game where one group hides a ball -- or something like a ball -- and the
other guys try to find it. One group would challenge one another. Most
generally we'd have a bet on one group too. Moccasin games were neighborly.
Another group would come into our camp as a neighbor, and they'd bet whatever
they had: guns, horses, canoes, blankets, anything maybe. Why they
gave away shotguns and everything. Hooh boy!! They were great gamblers.
They gambled at Mille Lacs Lake and Onigum. You would find Indians gambling wherever you wanted to go. If they were going to play moccasin game, they brought their work,(1) blankets, guns, ponies, and everything to gamble. They would come and challenge us. We'd play the moccasin game for anything. We'd play for money, guns, rifles, horses, wagons, ponies, sugar . . . anything they had. We'd play for big deals -- sometimes two to four days to a time.
The one you're betting with will tell you what it is that he wants to bet on. Those four men you're playing against will tell you what they want. And when he makes the bet he tells what it is again, right there, and that way we take his bets. We played for heavy bets. Ah-chii-gay means you're betting. Ah-chii-gay-wIn is what you bet on. We betted horses, guns, clothes, overcoats. Fur coats were a great thing in these northern parts. They were worth twenty, fifteen, or twenty-five dollars in those days. They were a good coat; they had heavy fur. In the moccasin game we betted sleds and wagons and ponies and team horses. Whatever they had, we'd bet on. We all liked it when we were driving those ponies -- Indian ponies -- years ago. On Leech Lake we called a horse a bay-bay-shii-go-gah-shi. Red Lakers call it a mash-tah-dIm. We didn't care what they called it, we'd bet them anyway. We'd bet for bow and arrows . . . and for maple sugar -- bark cases of sugar, twenty-five to maybe even fifty pound cases. We played for anything valued, and sugar was of great value to us -- it was one of our main foods, and it would keep a long time. It was generally the women's sugar, but the women would let the men bet their sugar while they stood in back of them looking on. We variated the value in the game. Sometimes we'd play for this, sometimes we'd play for that. But the valuation in the game is what we played for. In a game that's really valued, we bet high. Gee, there used to be a lot of valuable things in there. A gun and a horse are high bets. A low bet would be a small article, like anything. It would be like an old boat or something that isn't worth anything. But we'd bet on it, and if we won it, we'd fix it up anyhow. We'll bet anything. If you lose your bet, you misjudged -- gîi-w^-nI'-chi-gay. That means you lost where you planted the brass ball -- or the marked ball. You value the things you win according to the make. A hand-made outfit
is a high value because it's well done -- it's sewed well and everything.
That's a higher cost, a higher bet, a higher prize. Beaded moccasins have
high value, but you can take a valuation of them down by taking the beads
off.
You need so many points on this moccasin game to get the canoes. You need a certain amount of points in the innings of the game to get the horses. You'll need so many points to get the guns. The points you need are whatever you agree on, but generally higher bets have more points. The number of points you need depends on the valuation of what you're playing for. That's quite a game! The bet is stacked up there, right next to where we're playing. The group standing behind the players will be watching it. They pile it up in the one place. Everybody just throws everything in together, and whatever you win, you split up among the players on your side. You value everything you win; then you split it up. You split the valuation with those playing. They take whatever they want, and you tell them what you want. If you both want the same thing, you'll probably pull straws for it. They usually pull straws on certain things they want. Whoever wins with the straws will get the horses. And if they lose, why, they don't get them. When we split the other things up we just throw them into the bunch. Then the players on the winning team will pick out what they want. "Well, who wants the boat? "Who wants the canoe? "Well," somebody says, "could it be fixed?" "It could be fixed, re-patched." "OK. I'll take it." And we usually leave enough valuation for another game. Like we might leave blankets and quilts. We play moccasin game any time of the seasons. We play it inside or outside. We play day and night. Some of the games went two and three days. They went that long if the sides were tying up.(2) When each side is pretty well powerful, the games go a long time. But if one side is weak, well the stronger team will take everything just as fast as the weak team puts it out. When they're tying up, it takes long. It takes a long time. In a long game the players relief each other. Another guy from their same bunch will come in to relieve a player. They usually relieve each other to eat or rest or sleep, but when the game gets real rough the women would just bring in the men's meals to the moccasin game place. Oh, boy, when they're tying up, that moccasin game drum just keeps a-going. This moccasin game is quite a sport. It's quite a game. If you're
interested, there isn't much to it to learn. If you learn the points and
just watch the game, it'll come natural to you. You'll understand the
game when you look at it. It doesn't take you long to learn. You just sit there and look and look, and sit there and listen. You don't realize
the time that's going by because you're listening to the guy that's singing.
You'd see how rough a moccasin game is, if you could see one. They don't
get rough and fight about it, but it's a hard game. They work hard trying
to find that ball in order to get the winnings.
It was just like one ball team meeting another. We played people from all over. We played with groups from Ball Club, Cass Lake, and Walker. We played with those old timers like John Quincy from Bena-Cass Lake. And we played with John Kingbird too. That Kingbird, boy, he was great. He was a sharp son-of-a-gun. Those Cass Lakers are sharp in moccasin game. Oh boy, they're hard to beat. They have one man there that'll hit the right ball pretty near every time he wants to, and he knows how to hide the ball too. He's sharp. The Indians feared to play them. They feared Cass Lake Mission players. They were son-of-a-guns to play. We played other groups too. Inger is a group; Leech Lake is a group; Bowstring is a group; White Earth is a group; Mille Lacs is a group. Supposing we want a game. We'll call Mille Lacs. In the olden days
we'd notify Mille Lacs that we were going to have a game by sending a
runner down with a message. They'd go give them the message. In a few
days the players from Mille Lacs would come and bring whatever they had
to bet with. They'll come and camp around. They'll camp around, maybe
during blueberrying time.(3) They'll usually
come when they have other things for the women folks to work on. While
the men are playing moccasin game the women are cooking. They continue
their work! Washing dishes, cleaning the wigwam, berry picking,
patching up their canoes.
Just the men play moccasin game. The women did play -- some of them played, once in a while -- but it isn't a woman's game. They could understand it, but they'd start using that pointing switch on one another. In the moccasin game we use a switch -- a stick about as long as your arm -- to hit the moccasins with. That switch has the peel bark taken out of it, and it's well-dried and springy. When we hit a moccasin with that switch the ball underneath it just flies! Some men will be playing as a team, and
all the other men will stand watching over the game. You're not alone when you're playing moccasin game. There's a group
back of you. That's your team. There usually are four in there playing
on each team. Usually there are four men on a team, but there can be five
or six. It all depends on the team, and on how many there are in the team
challenging you.
During the game the four guys are sitting abreast on a blanket. They pin that blanket down so it doesn't fold up, and then they sit on that blanket. They put a weight on it, so it won't fold up. And that keeps the table clean. We call it a table now, but it's really a bedding of the moccasin game. This moccasin game bed keeps tight and you know what you're doing that way. Otherwise, if you leave it loose, it folds up and then maybe you won't know what's going on. This way everything is down tight and you can keep track of things. During a moccasin game four guys are on each end of the blanket doing
the playing. These four guys on a team can bring as many as they want --
five or ten -- to stand in back of them. The ones standing in back are the
guidance. They watch, and the players watch, while the other team hides the
balls under moccasins. My partners and I are sitting on the edge of the
blanket, and the drummer -- we always had a moccasin game drummer -- is sitting off
the blanket on my right, drumming. The drummer's going to favor
one side. And my partner, he might even get a job pounding the drum -- to
give relief to the man with the voice, the one that's singing and pounding
the drum. If my partner feels the drummer is getting tired, he grabs the
drum and he sings.
You usually play that game with four moccasins on the blanket, m^-kI-zI'n-^-táa-gay. If you're using four moccasins -- or four of whatever you're using to hide the balls -- you also have four balls the size as a marble -- three lead balls and one brass ball. Sometimes we'd use all brass balls, with one ball marked. Sometimes we just use stones, but we liked to use anything metal better. But if we didn't have anything metal we used anything we got a hold of. You know, those days when we got metal in this country we thought the world of it, even if it was some kind of nickel plate. But when we didn't have metal, we used stones, pebbles, agates, or whatever we had. Some of those stones were polished, and that made them nice. In the old days they'd work on stones to make them just like a ball. The little brass ball -- or whatever they're hiding -- is called gaa-káa-dó-^n-wí$. Whatever we used, there was always one marked ball. That's the one the other team has to find. It's a great game boy; that's worse than a ball game.
One side will hide the marked ball and the other side will try to find it. One of the men on a team hides the balls with his hands. Ka-ká-dú -- that's hiding the ball. He puts one ball under each one of the four moccasins, so one of these four moccasins has the marked ball under it. When the other team hits that marked ball, they get points. We used to just use moccasins or small pieces of buckskin in the olden days, but you can put those balls under anything. One team takes those balls and hides them under the moccasins. The one that's hiding them will be sitting there shaking those balls with his hands together. When he stops shaking them his hands open a little, close to his body -- close to his stomach -- and he takes a peek down to see where the marked ball is. Then he hides it wherever he's going to hide them.
Ga-dú-wI-nI-nii means the guy that hides the ball, on their side. He has to know where the marked ball is. If you hit for it and miss, you can say, "OK. Show me where it is." Then the guy that hid it has to know where it is. If he doesn't, you win the points. The partner that's going to hit on the other team will be trying
to figure out where your team's going to hide the marked ball. He may
nod his head when you're hiding the balls. He's watching you throw these
balls under the moccasins, so you try to hide them so fast he doesn't know where you're hiding
them. Shake the balls high -- shake the balls up well -- then hide them under
the moccasins, as fast as you can. If you do it right -- before he notices
it -- you won't have anything in your hands because the balls are already
under the moccasins. You can put the marked ball under any moccasin, and
you can do it any way you want to, but while you're hiding the balls the
others will be watching you.
The other team will watch what a person's doing when he's hiding
the ball. They watch for a flinge. Maybe he's moving his head or eyes,
or something like that. When you know a hider's signs, you got him pegged.
When you know a guy's signs, you know where he's hiding that marked ball.
Maybe you know when the guy who is hiding the balls is casting his eyes
away from the marked ball . . . or to the marked ball. We use that information too, when we're
playing the moccasin game.
One of the guys who is standing behind the team that's looking for the marked ball may see a flinge on the guy who's hiding the ball. Maybe when he hides the balls he'll move his arm in a certain way, or he may lean a little bit over here on one side, or hang his head some way, or move his body in some way. Maybe he's doing something with his eyes when he's hiding the balls and one of the guys standing in back may notice that. If he does, he's got the hider marked and he'll tell the ones playing on his side, "I got that guy marked." Then he just taps one of the guys who's playing, and when the player looks up, the one who noticed the flinge will tell him, "Well, let me take over. I got him pegged." So the new guy sits down, and when the guy on the other team starts to hide the ball, the new guy knows the flinge on him. Once in a while the one hiding the balls may pretend to flinge just to throw the others off. The ones that flinge with their feet or their hands like that are really good. And when they can pretend to flinge like that, pretty soon, instead of the others hitting the marked ball when they come down with that whip, they hit another one. At times the guy that hides the ball holds the marked ball in his hand for a spell. When he keeps the ball in his hand there's a laugh in that when they can't find it under the moccasin. There's a meaning to that too. While the other team is hiding the ball you'll be sitting on your knees on one side of the blanket looking at those guys, and they'll be sitting the same way on the other side looking at you. You can be sitting any way you want, but generally the players will be sitting on their knees while they're playing. They'll be sitting there on their knees with their arms folded. They sit like that watching the one hiding the ball while he's getting ready. They're watching him carefully. They're watching every move he makes. They can watch whatever he does, and he can watch what they do. When he's ready, the hider throws the marked ball underneath a moccasin. When there's one ball under each of the four moccasins, they're ready for the other team to try to find the marked ball. The moccasins will be sitting upside down on the blanket. If he hides them right, the other team won't know where the marked ball is. The one that's hitting for the team will be sitting there with the
stick. He'll have a switch, a little switch called b^ss-sh^-zjá-i-g^'n.
It doesn't make any difference what kind of wood it's made out of. You
can make a switch from anything springy -- hazelnut brush, or brush of
any kind. We peel it -- so it'll dry out and be light. Willow makes a good
switch too. You use that stick to hit the moccasin that you think is hiding
the brass ball.
If you don't know where the marked ball is you can talk to the other team players, but most of the time you don't even have to talk to them. There are certain numbers for the moccasins. Each moccasin has a certain number assigned to it. As you go from left to right when they're facing you, number one moccasin is on the left, number four moccasin is on the right. When they're playing this game they kind of cup their hands, and put up the number of fingers of the moccasin number to tell their partner which moccasin to hit. You can also talk to the guys watching on the side of you and ask them what they think. If you're puzzled, you ask him, "Do you know where it is?" If one of the on-lookers knows where the marked ball is, he'll tell you, and then you give him that stick. And if he knows where the marked ball is, he takes the stick and he hits the moccasin. If he knows, he takes the stick. But if he doesn't know, he'll shove the stick to somebody else to give the other ones a chance. When you think you know where the marked ball is, you take that stick and whip the moccasin. If you can't find the marked ball the first time, you have to try it again. You can hit one or two moccasins, because sometimes you miss on the first try. And when they hit the moccasin, they whipped it. If four guys are playing together and one fellow is weak on whipping the ball, one of the other guys will take the stick away and hit the moccasin so hard that he makes the other team flinge. You have to flinge when they hit the ball hard. And if he hits the marked ball, some of the on-lookers holler mii-zay-d^'m. That means the player hit the mark. They're favoring -- favorizing -- their bunch. The way we put that, it's understandable. Twenty-five, thirty, would sometimes gather for a moccasin game. They go there to listen and watch. It's one village going to another. They would come and stand there and watch them all day long. If someone's going to watch a moccasin game, they're going to favor one side to the other, maybe. They're usually going to favor their own group. One Indian word for that group is ín-daa-wáad. That's a house -- a house curved up. It's the place where we rest -- a wiigwaam. Some of them are always related in there, but they're not all related.(4) Some of them are married into the group. Well, you take one family and you have two or three adults and four or five kids, that's one wiigwaam. They're neighborly, so there may be a sister or cousin or anything in that group. That's ín-daa-wáad. And strangers are welcome, if they show a proof of a good way of life. A stranger would come into ín-daa-wáad if he was going to marry one of the girls, or if she was going to marry one of the boys. They come in if they have that on their mind. That's self-told by their truth of mind.(5) Sometimes the girls came to the moccasin game as rooters. The women folks would root for their village. Sometimes they'd side-in and sing with their men. They would come and dance, but the team that's losing didn't like it. The women would go sing for their side, and dance -- still-dance -- just in back of their menfolk. Oh, that gets the losing gang, the losing side!! The women are teasing, more or less. The losing side doesn't like that when they see the women dance by their men. And when the women saw that the men on the other side didn't like their singing and dancing, they'd really start up. That's just like rooting and booing in the ball game. The moccasin game was a very interesting game for everybody. It's quite a deal. Boy it was tough. The members of each team have a certain number of times -- four or
five times -- that they hide the ball, and then the hiding changes to another member of their team. They
change off hiding the ball when a fellow gets tired of swinging his arms.
There are always two extras to each side. While the team is hiding the
ball one of the others will be singing and pounding the drum, and if he
gets tired singing and pounding they'll change too.
The side that's hiding the ball continues hiding it until the other side finds it. If the other side can't find the marked ball, then the team hiding it is winning continually. When the other team finds the marked ball, the hiding goes to them. When one of the guys on the other team is really sharp-ful, he knows where the marked ball is. When he knows where the marked ball is, he hits that ball, and so he gets the ball back. Then he hides it. If the team is good in finding that marked ball -- sometime which they aren't -- then they'll get the chance to hide the marked ball right back. Sometime they don't find that ball for a long time -- but, if they're good in finding the ball, they'll get the ball right back. Sometimes a team doesn't get a chance to make a point, and sometimes they play a tie. We call that a tie when hiding the ball changes back and forth even. But if one team makes a point nearly every time -- if they hit that marked ball and find that ball pretty-near every time the other team hides it -- well, these guys could sit back there and just rake in all the points. If they're good at finding the marked ball, they can sit back and stick and peg points all day long. But one team can be busy hiding
the ball, and the next thing you know, by gosh, they're losing. That's
the way the other team will reverse things sometimes. When the other team
misses that marked ball, then it's your turn. Whenever these guys have
missed, it's your turn again. When the other team hits that ball, then
they take over from the one that's hiding the ball, and they start
a-hiding the ball.
We'd play each game for certain points, and there'd be so many games
played to win a bet. The games are usually sixteen -- sometimes thirty-two -- points, and we keep track of these points with little sticks.
The number of games played are any amount. It all depends on the valuation you have to play for. We keep track of the games with little pegs. The number of rounds in a bet would depend on what you're playing for. If you want to play for a high valuation, and you want to win that valuation, you might say, "Well, we'll play to ten games." Ten games -- geeze that's a long match -- but the value is there. When you're playing for guns and everything you'll have to play hard. If he has something for ten games, you have to play hard to win. More often we played four, five, six games for a bet. If you take too many games for a bet, your time will run out. They were sometimes afraid to be runned out -- throwed out of the game -- before their betting was over, so they usually didn't have too many games to a bet unless the valuation was high.
Each of these moccasins you hit has different points to it. The first moccasin to the left facing you -- the number one moccasin -- that's two points. The second moccasin counts four points. Two, four, six, eight, that's the points of the four moccasins as you go from left to right when they're facing you. Number one is two points, and they go down the line to eight points. Number four is eight points; four is eight -- and if you guess that the ball is under there you get eight points. There's two, four, six, eight points to these four moccasins. Every time you turn over a moccasin, that's one score -- or two, or whatever the value is that you're playing for. If you can tip three moccasins over and if that marked ball is under the last moccasin, you get double count. When you "hit square" you double count, and that means you turn over three moccasins without finding the ball, and the ball is under the fourth one. You don't have to say double count, just say, "I'm counting what you do." If, when you're doing that, you start tipping the moccasin over where the marked ball is, you lost because you're looking for the balls without the mark. The way you lose then is if you come up with the marked ball on one of the first three turns. If you turn over two moccasins and then you hit it, on the third moccasin, that reduces the strength of your double count. The more you turn over, the nearer you're getting to the marked ball. You don't have to turn over the three moccasins. Sometimes, if you're sharp at it -- if you're experienced -- you can score full double points on one moccasin. By finding the moccasin with the marked ball and by hitting it direct, you get double points. That would be sixteen points, but very seldom there's a man that'll do that. Boy, oh boy, that is a big count. In Indian we call that double counting nii-zjI-ga-báy-náwo. The shortest way is, níi-zjo-g^báyn-wáa. They're saying, "I can beat you. I can beat you. I'm double." That's why they go to one another like that. If you know -- or if you think you know -- where that ball is, you say that direct to the man who hid the ball. If you know you're going to hit the marked ball, you point two fingers at the man who hid the balls under the moccasins. That means you know where it is, and that you're going to hit for a double header. For instance, if you know that ball is under the first moccasin, you give the ball hider the double sign, then take and hit that first moccasin hard. Then you tip that moccasin over, and if the marked ball is under it you get full double points. You go right over there to it; that's where it is. If you hit straight you count double on "hit straight." If you hit the right moccasin, your full count is there, usually sixteen points. But if you hit it in the wrong place -- if you look for the ball in the wrong place -- your count reduces because its a wrong moccasin. You're legal yet -- you can continue hitting -- but your count reduces. We usually keep track of the count with little sticks. We use the small sticks when we get points. We also have game pegs to keep track of the games. Usually we use both counting sticks and game pegs. On a big game we'd always use both, depending on who's playing against us. It's up to us what we want to do, count or peg. The way we count depends on who's playing against us and for what. Besides the bigger game pegs we have small sticks we throw at one
another to keep the points. These are the point sticks. If I lose, I give
you my point sticks. You take my sticks if you win. And when you get all
my sticks, you take the pile of stuff. You get so many of the point sticks
each time you guess right, and if you feel like getting tired playing
the moccasin game, or want to exchange with somebody else, you just hand
your point sticks to somebody else and they will take your place.
During the moccasin game we throw these sticks. They're called gaa-dó-mi-tI'g.
The little sticks are just like match sticks; only they're longer. They're
about eight inches or six inches long. They're peeled, well-peeled. These
sticks are hard to make. They're peeled, and there are thirty-two of them
altogether; I guess sixteen twice. We usually use thirty-two small sticks
to keep track of our points, although the number of sticks we use sometimes
depends on what we're betting on. Sometimes there are only about twelve,
sometimes there are twenty-four, whichever your game is. When we're not
using them, they're tied in a bundle.
Every time you run out of these little point sticks the other team drives a bigger peg in the ground on their side of the playing area. Counting sticks -- the short sticks -- go back and forth for maybe three, four, or five games before one side has them all. Pretty soon those little sticks are gone from one side, and they put a big peg there in the ground. When one side gets all of the little point sticks, they peg the big stick up. Then, when they get to the five games -- or to whatever they're playing for -- when they get the five big sticks pegged, they win. There's a blanket out there where you're playing moccasin game. Your pegs are on just one side of the blanket. One team will have four or five or six or ten big pegs, and the other team will have four, five, six, ten -- the same number. They'll be laying there like dead sticks until they're pegged. You can put your pegs -- your big pegs -- on either side you want, just so everybody knows whose pegs are whose. Usually we peg on the left side. We have the pegs right here beside us -- right by the moccasins. You're pegging on your left side, and we're pegging on our left side. The left side when we're facing the moccasins is our left side, and that's where we peg. Your left side is on the opposite side of the blanket -- so you peg there. Whosoever's pegging usually pegs on the left side. One guy pegs for his team, and each side has its own pegger. Each team uses its own sticks. When the other guys take an inning, they're doing their own pegging. It's just like a scorer. They don't have any markings or lines or anything, they just peg them in the ground. Sixteen counting sticks usually puts one big peg in the ground, but it can vary depending on what you're playing for. That peg's another point marker. When you get all sixteen sticks you take a big peg and stick it in the ground on your side of wherever you're playing. Sixteen sticks are a game. That's a game. When they win the game -- when this one team made a game -- they peg. When one team comes to sixteen points, or thirty two points, or forty points -- whatever they're playing for -- they peg that with a game peg. When you get to the number of points which are allowed or agreed upon, you peg it. With the pegs you can forget about numbers, and go ahead and play again because you have it pegged already. That proves the games. The big pegs are ten or twelve inches -- sometimes longer. A game peg is sometimes whittled out of wood, but most generally we just used sticks. The big pegs are called mi-zhú-d^m-^n-wí$. That's the winner. You can tell how many games you played by looking at the big pegs. There'll be one big peg or stick for each game. When a team's winning they're pegging them sticks over and over. When they get ten pegs, that's usually the game. After you peg for so many games -- whatever number you agreed upon -- these guys that were losing, they lost. And you're the winner. They lost the whole bet. They lost their guns, rifles, canoes, beadworks, sugar, or anything -- whatever they put up for the bet. They put it in one pile for these Leech Lakers. The team will start dividing up their winnings. So any one of all these guys that were playing against the guys that lost takes what they bet; they take what they want -- clothes, blankets, or anything. You could stand there and watch them. If you want to bet someone in the next game, you point at them with your finger. That means you want to take them on in the next game. You don't have to say anything. If you point to him like that, he may come back holding two fingers up. He may kind-a throw those two fingers towards you. That means he thinks he can double you. When the guy who owns the sticks is done, he ties his little sticks
up -- he puts them in a bundle or a little bag -- and goes home.
And at the same time we are playing, one of the guys will pound a little drum and sing moccasin game songs. It's just a song to make you feel good. The guy that's hiding the ball is not singing; another guy is. One guy is singing, and the rest are all listening and watching for that ball to be hidden. Everybody's watching the one guy hide the ball, but they're all listening to that guy singing too. And this guy who's singing pounds the drum pretty fast. He sings a very nice song. He sings good songs. We have a special drum for moccasin games. We use little thin ones --
about three, four, inches thick and about a foot and a half across. They're
made of raw hide, and some of them have rattlers inside. M^-kI-zI'n
n^-táa-gay dáy-way-i-g^'n, that's the moccasin
kind of drum. It's a drum introduced(6) as a drum they're going to use for
a certain movement of their life.
The drummer sits anywhere in the middle -- between the two teams -- off to the side of the blanket. And when he gets tired singing he throws the drum to some other singer. They go along fine like that, passing the drum back and forth. They'd pound the drum a week to a time like that! We sang a different kind of song while we played a moccasin game -- short and fast drumming songs. Moccasin game songs are fast drumming songs. And when the one guy is doing the hiding, he'll have the movements in the same time as the one singing the songs. We don't have different songs for winning or losing; there are just different songs in general. When they get tired of one song they sing another song, and they keep going like that. There are three, four different songs that they'll sing to a game. They change songs themselves. And when a team has lost the chance of hiding that marked ball, then they're done both hiding and singing. That reverses either way. Every time they stop drumming, somebody's losing. When you hear the drum stop often, you know that's a rough game. When the drum stops often like that you know the players are in a tight game. Short songs mean that its a tight game. When it would stop like that, a lot of the womenfolk would say, "Are they pegging? Let's go see the men. Let's see who is winning." If they hear that drum pound a little while, then pound a little while, they'd say, "By Gosh that's a hard game. Let's go see who's got the most presents." When they hear that drum stop like that, the way they go. But if they heard the drum steady they'd say, "Who's singing? Maybe Leech Lake." And they'll all go and dance the men from their bunch. The dance is rooting. They still-dance. They just keep time with a song. And they'll wave their handkerchiefs or something. Ohhh gee! That would get the other side mad! And when your drum is continuing, you could hear it a long ways off. You could hear that drum continuing a long ways off and when there's no stopping that drum, then you know that's the drum of the team that's taking the game. When that drum keeps a-going their guys are winning. Whenever you hear that moccasin game drum continuing you know they're winning. Some individuals, just like some teams, are good at winning moccasin game. Boy, some of them are sharp at the moccasin game. And whoever is sharp at it, he's wealthy. My brother-in-law from Mille Lacs was sharp at the moccasin game. He had all kinds of blankets, and all the guns that he wanted to have. He'd bring home a lot of stuff. Oh that was pretty stuff. He knew how to hide those balls, and he knew how to hit the moccasin with the marked ball. Boy he was good at it! He was well-off down there at Mille Lacs. He had wagons, beautiful blankets, and his house was well-fixed. In Mille Lacs they say he was bad(7) for playing the moccasin game. He has brothers in Mille Lacs yet. His brothers came down about seven years ago. The brother pointed at me -- the cousin pointed at me -- and said, "Your brother-in-law's the worse son-of-a-gun in Mille Lacs. He's the one that made the poor Indians up there. He won all the horses they had to put up, including the wagons. And he has a good home."(8) He used to be bad on this moccasin game. He was bad on cards games or anything. . . . You know why? We found medicine(9) on him. He believed in that. He was a great medicine man. I suppose he bought that from a good medicine man. When he finally got married to my sister, my sister found medicine in his pocket. She told him, "If you're going to carry that and believe in that, you're going to be in trouble with me. I'm afraid of that. You'll have to get rid of that. If you don't . . . , well . . . , just don't bother me." She told me that. She felt that way because she was a Catholic. "I want to trust your belief,' she told him, "and please trust mine." So he did throw that medicine away. They burned it, and he had to put tobacco out when he burned it. He told it, "You're done."(10) So he became a strong Catholic. When my brother-in-law used luck medicine when he played the moccasin game -- and if he was too strong with that medicine -- you couldn't beat him. He would get the opponents so dizzy they couldn't beat him. They didn't have to take medicine,(11) they'd just think about him and they got dizzy. He was so powerful that sometimes they'd even get a nose bleed. There was too much power in that stuff. Sometimes they'd get a nose bleed it was so strong. "Hei$, I gotta go!" That's what they'd say when they realized he was using luck medicine. I don't like that luck medicine. . . . You never know who's carrying that. . . . You can use medicine for gambling. You can use it for whatever the medicine man made it for. You can go and ask the medicine doctor for some luck medicine. Sure, you bet you can go. You might ask him for that with a pint of whiskey. Tobacco is a big thing too. Carry that tobacco and whiskey when you go. Set that whiskey down in front of the medicine doctor. Then pour it in a glass, or pour it in a cup. Put it there in front of him, along with the tobacco. Fill your pipe; let him fill his pipe, and then light his tobacco. Tell him what that's for: "I come here with tobacco and a peaceful drink for you, and I ask for a favor on you. I play games, moccasin games. I don't feel very lucky and I want something to help me, something for better luck. You have it, and if you haven't got it, you know where it is." If he has it, he says, "Yes I have it. All right." He'll go and get the medicine, and give you a very little of it. He'll put it in a little buckskin bag. It's just ground up bark and powder, and a little wild roots. It's a mixture. But the doctor that does give you the medicine goes through something when he makes that. They fast when they make that medicine. They don't eat for two, three, days. They don't eat, and that way they get out into the spirit world. Then they meditate that spirit to work with the medicine. All you have to do is carry that. Just have it on you. Everything goes your way with that luck bag, everything. You don't fail on anything. It's supposed to last as long as you carry it. It's supposed to last as long as you carry it, but if you ever lose it, your luck is gone. Yah, that's quite a deal. They used to have that medicine in a pouch. They'd roll it in a silk handkerchief and then roll that in buckskin. They dress it up the best. Gee, that's quite a game, that moccasin game. It's quite a sport. That's quite a game,
but its fading away. We're losing it. Very few know that any more. We
still have people my age -- the older class -- who know how to play the moccasin
game. We still have a few my age left who know that game. There's a guy
down here -- Ray Robinson -- who knows that game. Otherwise it's only most
of the Indian singers(12) that know the
moccasin game. Most of the drummers know that moccasin game. Ray Robinson
is a drummer; Joe Fairbanks is a drummer; they know that game. George
Wakefield knows it too. They all know the moccasin game, moccasin game
songs, and Indian things. Oh, we used to have fun with the moccasin game!
Sometime we played three, four, days to a time. That was a good game.
I think it should be brought back amongst our people.
Bud Tibbets -- a neighbor of mine down the road, -- says, "I could sit all day and watch the game." Tom Bowstring and I talked a lot about the moccasin game -- in Indian -- and he laughed all the time he was talking. And what a joke they played -- what a joke they tried to play -- to beat the other side. They played wrong. They played crooked, but somebody's watching them all the time. "Try to hide them all if you want. Try to sneak them all, but get ready to shove the sticks right out," he'd say. Then everybody laughed. The moccasin game isn't any place to be mad. That's supposed to cheer you up. That moccasin game and those songs just perp you up. It's life-giving. It puts rhythm in your life. It cheers you up. When you're watching, you feel like getting into the game, and when you're in the game, you always feel like you could do better. After a moccasin game you feel like a man. It goes right in to your system -- into your bones and all. You can feel it. You feel good. You're satisfied. You're relaxed. You've seen something, and you have something to think about. Isn't that a great thing, eh? It's natural. Your body has to relax.
Your body has requirements. You give your body satisfaction with that game, and when
you take off from a game, you're ready for a big drink of tea or coffee. Whenever
you're ready for big relaxation, by God the moccasin game's something
to speak about . . . and laugh about . . . and
think about. . . .
Footnotes 1. Beadwork, basketwork, leatherwork, home-made blankets, maple sugar cakes, etc. Cf. also Ch. 7, "Skigamizigewin, Maple Sugar Time." 2. If the teams' scores were tied a lot. 3. See Ch. 10, "Blueberry Time." 4. Some people in the household are married into the group; the others are generally biologically related. Residence tends to be patrilocal. A "stranger" may come into the group during the time when he is doing suitor service as part of the marriage process. See Ch. 24, "Courtship, Marriage, and Living in with the In-Laws." 5. The statement, "That's self-told by their truth of mind," means essentially that they know because it is part of the very nature of an action or thing to be that way. Anishinabe speakers linguistically distinguish between actions and things that are so by their very essence or nature, actions or things they have heard about or have been told about, and actions or things they know from personal experience. (For e.g., 2 + 4 = 6, is known and said to be so by the very essence or nature of twoness and fourness and the process of combining what can be combined [categorizations like actions, qualities, things . . . ]. That is known in a way different from one being told that 2 + 4 = 6. And one who figures out on their own by personal experience that the order of the numbers is not meaningful, i.e., that 4 + 2 also = 6, "knows" that information about the order of numbers in a different way again.) Some actions and things are so "because they are so," and this category is distinguished linguistically. Here Paul is making sure that that quality ("this is so because it is the way it is and everyone knows that it is the way it is") does not get lost in the translation into English. Anishinabe language is verb- or action-centered, and that affords one a different way of perceiving both actions and things, and, indeed, the world itself. It is part of what some might call "world view." Another example: When Paul and I were having coffee, looking out the window, I would look out and see birds at the birdfeeder eating birdseed. Paul, on the other hand, would look out the same window at the same event, and see eating (being done by animals-that-fly but shared his same life spirit), and that action as part of what living animals -- and sometimes spirits -- do as part of the normal essence of the way things are in nature, and that that action happens again and again as part of a natural cycle. His focus, in short, was on eating (the verb); my focus was on the birds (the noun). Some modern-day translators caution against over-nominalization when translating from Ojibwa/Chippewa to English; that is, they caution against the tendency of making nouns in English from the original Ojibwa/Chippewa verbs. Paul would agree. 6. When a drum is made it is often "introduced" to the community, and as part of that "introduction" the drum maker tells the community what the drum is for. Cf., Ch. 22, "Drums." 7. "Bad" here means rough or difficult. It is not a moral judgement of doing some evil thing, as one could use luck medicine in gambling, under certain conditions. In a similar manner one could use love potion when courting, or luck medicine when netting fish. "Bad" means that the person has strong power. It means they also usually get what they want, and that it is difficult to override their medicine power. He was very difficult to play against -- in part because he used Indian luck medicine in his gambling. See discussion that follows, which suggests, for example, that on occasion his medicine power was so strong that it would cause nose bleeds in opponents. 8. This is an example of a joking relationship between in-laws, or potential in-laws. 9. Good luck medicine. Power medicine. 10. It's common to talk to medicine. In fact, when medicine is properly meditated it must be talked to. And the Great Spirit must be talked to. It's also common to talk to animals, trees, and other plants. In this case it is proper to talk to the medicine and tell it why you are abandoning it. 11. That is, they didn't actually have to take the medicine to be affected by it. If a power person was carrying medicine one would only have to think about him carrying it, and about his/her power, and it would be effective. Likewise, for a person to use it, one could just carry the medicine bag on your person. Carrying a medicine bag on your person -- for hunting luck, or for love medicine, for example -- was a common way of using luck or love medicine, or most any kind of medicine of that type. Other types of medicine are mixtures of plants, and other things, which are often taken internally, frequently as a liquid drink or liquid dosage. 12. People who are traditional Indian singers. They
also usually belong to an Indian drum, and follow a more traditional way of life. |
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