Ball Players, plate 21 from "North American Indian Portfolio"

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Artist/Maker George Catlin (American, 1796 – 1872)

Publisher James Ackerman (American)

Date1845

MediumHand-colored lithograph on paper

DimensionsComposition/Sheet: 13 3/4 × 18 5/8 in. (35 × 47.3 cm) Sheet: 15 9/16 × 22 1/8 in. (39.5 × 56.2 cm)

Credit LineBequest of Samuel Hopkins Adams, Class of 1891

Object number1959.123

Not on view

DescriptionThree distinguished Ball Players, portraits from life, in the ball-play dress. No. 1 Tul-lock-chish-ko (He who Drinks the Juice of the Stone). A Choctaw. No. 2. Wee-chush-ta-doo-ta (The Red Man). A Sioux, from the Upper Mississippi. No. 3. Au-no-je-nahge (He who Stands on both Sides). A Sioux brave, from the Missouri. In devoting a few of the last pages of this work to some of the principal Amusements of the North American Indians, I have commenced with the beautiful game of Ball, decidedly the favorite and most exciting game of the American tribes. Amongst the forty-eight tribes which I have visited, I find the game of Ball everywhere played; and to my great surprise, by tribes separated by a space of three thousand miles, played very nearly in the same manner; the chief difference consisting in the different construction of the ball-sticks used—the modes of laying out the ground—and painting and ornamenting their bodies. In most of the tribes there are certain similar regulations as to dress, ornaments, &c., which no one is allowed to depart from; and in the three portraits given in the illustration here, these peculiar and general modes are all set forth. Amongst all the tribes I have visited in their primitive condition, where their native modes are unchanged by civilized innovations, I find that every player must enter the play entirely denuded, with the exception of their breoch-cloths and ornamented belts around their waists; their head-dresses, tails, and manes made of horse-hair or beautiful quills: leaving all their limbs free to act, without the least incumbrance of dress. And that they may feel and appreciate more to their advantage the ground that they run upon, they uniformly enter the lists to run in this desperate chase with the naked foot. Amongst the Choctaws, Creeks, and various other tribes in the southern latitudes of America, they play the game with two ball-sticks; each player, as represented in the first of these figures, carrying a stick in each hand, with an oblong hoop or racket at the end, between which, bringing the two together, he catches the ball as he runs, and throws it home to his goal if possible. With the Sioux, Ojibbeways, and other numerous tribes living one or two thousand miles to the north, though the rules of the game are in other respects precisely the same, the players use but one stick, firmly held in both hands, with quite a round hoop at the end, in which the ball is taken with great certainty, as it is flying in the air, and thrown an almost incredible distance. This mode is well explained in the second and third figures in this plate, portraits of two of the most distinguished ball-players of the Sioux tribe. As illustrated in these figures, great pains are taken to ornament their naked limbs with a variety of forms and curious devices with red and other colors, oftentimes giving them the appearance of being clad in the most picturesque and vari-colored costume; and in many instances, for the more easy recognition of the players on their respective sides, those of one party are painted with white clay, rendering the mingled and darting throng one of the most picturesque and pleasing scenes imaginable. And yet, adding still more to the pictorial effect, as well as to the grace of this beautiful scene, each player has attached to his waist, and rising out from under his ornamented belt, a waving tail, made of white horse-hair—of vari-colored quills—or of long prairie grass (as seen in the three figures in the plate), which are lifted and gracefully float in the air as the players run, giving, with not a little of the grotesque, a decided life and beauty to these thrilling scenes, where hundreds are often struggling together for the mastery.

Collections

American Art

Additional Details

Alternate Titles North American Indian Portfolio

Exhibition History 2005
Clinton, NY. Fred L. Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College. Hamilton Collects, "A Century of Curiosities: The Story of the Hamilton College Collection," September 29 - December 30, 2005 (unnumbered cat.).

1992
Clinton, NY. Fred L. Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College. "Highlights from the Hamilton College Collection" June 5 - September 6, 1992 (cat. no. 56).

Provenance 1959: Hamilton College, by bequest of Samuel Hopkins Adams.

Published References A CENTURY OF CURIOSITIES, THE STORY OF THE HAMILTON COLLEGE COLLECTION (exh. cat., Clinton, NY, Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College, September 29-December 30, 2005, Unnumbered cat.).

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE HAMILTON COLLEGE COLLECTION (exh. cat., Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College, June 5- September 6, 1992, cat. no. 56).

Inscribed "Catlin. del." at lower left in typeset; "No.21. / BALL PLAYERS. / Published at James Ackerman's Lithographic Rooms, 304 Broadway, N.Y." at lower center in typeset; "IXUS" on verso at lower left in pencil; "HC 119" on verso at lower left in pencil.