Stickball (a ne jo di)
Stickball resembles the modern European game of lacrosse, using ball sticks which are made by hand from hickory. A small ball, made of deer hair and hide, is tossed into the air by the medicine man. The male players use a pair of the sticks, and female players use their bare hands.

In earlier times, only the men with the greatest athletic ability played the game. The game was oftentimes played to settle disputes, and the conjurer for each team often became as important to the team as the players themselves. Seven points are scored when the ball strikes a wooden fish or ball on the top of a pole approximately 28 feet in height, and two points are awarded when the ball strikes the pole.

In earlier days, there would be a dance before the ballgame. The ballplayers were the participants of the dance, along with seven women dancers. Each woman represented one of the clans. Throughout the dance, the women would step on black beads which represented the players of the opposing team. The conjurer had placed these black beads on a large flat rock. Today, stickball is an important part of the days activities at ceremonial Stomp Grounds, being necessary to play before the Stomp Dance can ever begin.

It is also a recreational sport at other times between community teams. There are also intertribal teams made up of players from Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Yuchi, Natchez, and other area communities.

Marbles (di ga da yo s di)


The game of Marbles, or di ga da yo s di, dates back to approximately 800 A.D. It is a complex game of skill and strategy played by adults on a five-hole outdoor course. Until the early part of the 20th century, players used marbles chipped from stone, smoothed into round marbles about the size of billiard balls. Today, there are still some traditional marble makers, but many players now use billiard balls for play. The contemporary rules for Marbles state that "players may use any ball legal for use in billiards as their marble. This means numbered balls 1-15, red snooker balls, specialty billiard balls, cue balls, oversized cue balls and 8-balls."

The game is played on a field approximately 100 feet long and containing five holes about two inches in diameter, 10 to 12 yards apart forming an L-shape. Any number may participate as long as each team has an equal number of players. While the game is historically played by adult men, children may play on their own teams against another children's team.

Each player uses one marble and must keep track of its location as well as the opposing players marbles. The players toss the marbles at the holes with the object of advancing by landing in each hole in sequence and then returning to the starting point.

Players must toss their marbles and knock the opposing players out of the way in a prescribed manner. The first team to complete the course is the winner. The game begins with each player throwing their marble while standing at the second hole then throwing toward the first hole. Players take turns throwing until the marble lands in the hole.

From the second hole, players throw into the first hole and then back to the second hole. Once a player has reached this point, the player can start using his marble to hit another team member’s marble away from the playing area. The strategy of the game is to prevent the other team players from making the holes while your own team advances through all holes and back again.

When hitting the marble of another player, one must make a direct hit or make one bounce then a hit within 4-6 inches of the opponent’s marble. A player cannot hit other opponent’s marbles more than twice without first making the next hole and then coming back to make the third hit. A hit to an opponent’s marble allows the player to make two additional throws of his marble. Additional throws can be either hits of an opponents’ marble or throws toward another hole. The team that first reaches the fifth hole and then returns to the first hole wins.

Once the game has begun, a marble must be picked up and thrown from the spot where it was retrieved. In throwing a marble, a player’s foot may step back, but not forward. An imaginary line is drawn where the marble had been lying and cannot be crossed when making a throw.

A team may informally identify a team captain that provides the directions of strategy to the team players. In the case of marbles landing outside the playing field, the player must make his next throw from wherever his marble landed.

In the case of a player making a hole, but having missed making the previous hole, the player must stay in the hole he/she just made until he/she is hit out by another player.If a player’s marble accidentally falls into a hole that he has been guarding, the penalty is that he must proceed on to the next hole.

When a marble is in a hole, another player can consider his marble “in the hole” or “made” if it leans against the first marble. The referree or player may check this by trying to move the bottom marble. If a player has already made all holes and is finished, they may go back and assist the team by hitting or guarding. If their marble accidentally falls into a hole, it must stay there until hit out by another player. If it is not a player’s turn and their marble is accidentally knocked into a hole, it must stay there also until it is knocked out. A player is allowed to brush away twigs and small obstacles out of the path of his marble, but not to dig a trail or path of any sort.

In a tournament, each team usually has three players. When there are more than three, the game can be expected to last longer, depending on the experience of the players. When the game starts at the second hole with everyone throwing towards the first hole, everyone has to make a first hole. A “hole-in-one” is accepted, but no special benefits are given the player.

A 6-inch zone surrounds each hole. If a player’s marble falls within that zone, the player can drop it in or place it in the hole on their next turn. Otherwise, the player must throw or roll the marble in to the hole.

A team may have 1 – 2 players to guard a hole while the others proceed to the next hole. This usually happens when the opposing team has not any “hitters” and the guarding players help ensure that their opponents do not make the second hole. Once a player makes the second hole, he becomes a “hitter” and can begin knocking the marbles of opponent players out of the way.

Only two hits are allowed to one opposing player before the “hitter” must proceed to the next hole and then is allowed to return and hit the same opposing player a third time. This process is referred to as: “I’m going to go renew.” When a player has been hit twice by an opponent, he can remind the hitter not to hit him a third time without “renewing” by saying, “I’m finished.”

A strategy of the team may be to send a good player ahead to make holes and be available to be a “hitter.” Sometimes a weaker player may be sent ahead to prevent him from holding the team up or from being left behind unprotected.

There are two ways of throwing the marble:

1. "Straight" or "Direct Throw". A player may throw a direct, hard hit to knock a player’s marble away from a hole. If missed, the player risks throwing his marble outside the playing area.

2. "Bomb Throw". A bomb throw has an arch and allows for better placement of the ball. It can be used to hit an opponent’s marble, but if missed, will leave the player’s marble closer to the hole. If the marble hits an opponent’s marble, it must hit it within 6 – 12 inches on a bounce to be acceptable.


Chunky
This game was played by almost all of the southeastern Indians, with some variation. All of the games made use of a smooth stone disk, usually with concave sides, and two long slender poles.

Generally speaking, two persons played and onlookers wagered on the outcome of the game. The idea was to start the stone disk rolling along a smooth piece of ground while the two players threw their poles after it with the goal of either hitting the stone or coming as near as possible to it when the stone came to a rest.

The sticks were about eight feet long, and coated with bear grease. There were several marks along the length of the shaft. One player rolled the stone and both of the players threw their poles after it. When the stone came to rest near one of the players' poles, the count was according to the marks on the pole.

The stones, generally made from hard quartz and perfectly finished, were considered very valuable because they were difficult to make from this hard material. These stones never belonged to individual persons, but to the town as a whole. Some called this game "running hard labor". The players would often keep playing and wagering on this game most of the day, staking everything they had on it

Cornstalk Shooting
Contestants shoot 80 yards from the target, and after all have shot, the archers walk the range to the cornstalk rack to count their scores. The score is determined by how many cornstalks the arrow pierces. After the scores are counted, the archers line up again, reverse the field and shoot the rack at the other end of the field.

The procedure is repeated until one of the archers reaches a total of 50 points.The cornstalk rack is a stack of stripped and cleaned cornstalks laid horizontally, 3 feet wide, 3 feet high and 12 inches deep. Four small vertical poles that are lashed together across the top for support hold the cornstalk rack.

Accuracy and strength is required to have the arrows penetrate the rack as horizontally as possible. The strength of the pull determines whether the arrow has enough velocity to pierce the tough woody fiber of the cornstalk.

"The Indian Pioneer Papers" are the product of a project which began in 1936. The Oklahoma Historical Society teamed with the history department at the University of Oklahoma to obtain a Works Progress Administration (WPA) writers' project grant for an interview program. The program was headquartered in Muskogee and was led by Grant Foreman. The writers conducted more than 11,000 interviews and after editing and typing the work, the results were over 45,000 pages long. The following excerpt is from the interview of Adam Bean of Stilwell.

"This game was known to the Cherokees for many years and was a great gambling game in the early days, according to the older Cherokees. The origin and date of the game are not known but it is still a great sport among the Cherokees. However, the younger generation do not shoot stalks as the Cherokees did forty or fifty years ago. The stalk ground was usually about a hundred and fifty yards long; smooth land and soft dirt. There was not any limit as to the number of members in a team, and I have shot in games where there were fifty men on a side.

The stalks were piled just exactly one hundred yards apart; these piles being three feet long, two feet thick and about three feet high. The big games were matched weeks in advance, so that the event could be noted throughout the country. Many people came from miles around to see the games and betting took place when the games started.

The members of the teams usually represented two or more communities, as the best shooters were chosen from several teams and made one team. After the teams were chosen the 'witcher' was chosen by the 'matcher.' The day before the game the chosen shooters began to come to the appointed place, often coming many miles. The matcher of the game and his backers or the gamblers furnished the food, which was usually cooked near the camp grounds.

Every member of the team was not always allowed to shoot, even though he had been chosen, for if the witcher for the team discovered that a member of the team was weak another player was chosen. The witcher was a smart man. He could sure tell if the team was going to win or lose.

The bows the payers used were made from bois d'arc and the arrows were made from black locust. The spears were made from wagon seat springs, the length of these spikes being from eight to eighteen inches.

Some of the old timers who shot with me [included] Johnson Tyler, George Soap, Sam Foreman, Isaac Hummingbird, Henry Walkingstick, Bill Downing, Alex Downing, William Shell, Riley Ragsdale, Ben Squirrel, John Rider, Tom Swimmer, Fixin Blackbird, William England and Toch Ketcher."

- Adam Bean, from "The Indian Pioneer Papers".