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 From
Indian
Running: Native American History and Tradition by
Peter Nabokov The formats for races varied widely. In the Montana high country the Crow used a 300 yard track, and had a hard time controlling jump-starters. Most races began a dozen times before they got under way. To the east, in present-day North Dakota, the Mandan cleared a three mile track, formed like a giant horseshoe, so that start and finish lines were but a hundred yards apart. Camp criers announced the race days ahead. Betting in blankets, buffalo robes, quilled shirts and leggings took a while because backers had to equalize their stakes. At the appointed time, onlookers thronged within the curved track. Pairs of barefoot, painted runners would be dispatched until the track was packed. Three heats were necessary before the winners might receive their red-painted feather, victory tokens to be exchanged for spoils. Then all plunged into the cool Missouri. In the land of the Osage along the present-day Kansas/Oklahoma border, an early nineteenth century chief named Black Dog constructed a race track to keep his warriors in trim. A length of two and half miles, it ran north-south in today's Rogers County, Oklahoma. Black Dog invited neighboring tribes to challenge his men. It was valuable training for the days when Osage couriers ran back and forth on the Black Dog Trail for the Confederacy. Inter-tribal running contests were also held in upper New York State between the Iroquoian tribes and the Missisauga of Ontario. Far to the north the Nunivak Eskimo held short foot races during their Bladder Feast, a fourteen day ritual held during "worst of the moon" -- January. The running honors the dead, whose spirits accompany the runners. In recent times Alaskan Eskimo Fourth of July festivities have included races. As a boy in the village of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island, Nathan Kalkianak was reluctant to join his village's celebration. "I didn't want to be in the race while there were so many people watching ... I didn't care a bit about winning," he says in the autobiography taken down by Charles Hughes. Nevertheless, he won, and yet, "Oh I felt more bashful now .. I seemed to talk to my parents in a funny way ...the old folks were pestering me with praises and congratulations which I didn't like very much." That afternoon Kalkianak watched an "old fashioned" Eskimo race, between grownups. Runners started from the village and ran along the north shore up to the mountain, then circled its base to Lake Troutman, returning via the shoreline. Anyone who stuck the whole way was considered a substantial runner. From
Indian Running: Native American History and
Tradition by Peter Nabokov Along the Gila and Colorado Rivers girls and boys were encouraged to run from childhood, in both kick-ball and relay racing. As Piman boys grew to manhood, they ran down deer. A Papago jhunting recitation opens: "Hither and yon they ran. This way they ran and killed the deer. There kept barking the comrade. There (the deer) fell and thrashed about. Then did the shaman run up. He moved the deer and laid him with his head to westward." Once chased to earth, the animal was smothered and its prized black tail cut off. In traditional times every Papago village's "Keeper of the Meeting" had a personal messenger, his "Leg." Infirm leaders might also be assigned helpers named "Eyes," "Ears," or "Voice." Laying the Keeper's fire, the "Leg" sat behind him ready to carry messages of war and challenges for the inter-village athletic events usually scheduled for autumn. Instead of sticks, however, croquet-sized balls were kicked around twenty to thirty mile circuits. Formed from stone or mesquite or palo verde wood, they were coated with creosote gum. Before the large wintering groups broke up for summer's planting and foraging, runners and their families proposed a match to the "game leader." In turn the idea was broached to the council, whereupon the prime runners were evaluated to see if the odds were in the village's favor. All summer the women cleared the practice area of thorns, and trainees took twenty-five mile runs into the hills each day. Prospective team runners drank a little water before noon, and abstained from meat, honey, or cactus syrup. Veteran players whose toenails were thick as horn critiqued the runners' technique and rehearsed the running-song cycles night and day. The athletes cast their own spells, blowing smoke toward their opponents village, incanting, "You are not a great runner, I can beat you." From
Indian
Running: Native American History and Tradition by
Peter Nabokov Traditionally Taos runners turn out for relay races as part of annual feast days, September 30th (El Dia de San Geronimo) and May 3rd (El Dia de Santa Cruz). Long the Tahiti of the Southwest to white painters and writers, Taos, and its races, have inspired much interpretive prose. The Indians haven't explained much on their own; Taos is notoriously close-mouthed about its rituals despite a century of efforts to penetrate them. The racing appears associated with the sun, the runners through their exertion strengthening its movement across the sky. In the Tiwa-speaking towns of Taos and Picuris, as well as the six Tewa speaking towns further down the Rio Grande, "sun road" race tracks on the earth reflect the route of that heavenly body. Alfonso Ortiz points out that these races seem to occur at "actual or culturally construed changes in season." At such periods of major shift in social patterns, the competitiveness actually serves to strengthen community bonds as divisions within the villages run side by side for cosmic regeneration. Taos' two divisions, the North and South Side kiva groups, are pitted against each other in these races. (Outsiders have been told this helps to select the following year's officialdom but that may be an Indian way to be polite and protect the truth.) Early on race day, medicine men exorcise the track from sorcery by either side. As the running gets under way, outsiders are often confused by the jumble of footmen. Both teams have men stationed at either end of the track. Starting from the east, two runners break for the west end to tag their partners. Back and forth this continues until one side gains an entire lap. In the old days their hair was braided, bells jangled at their waists, tufts of eagle down dotted their bodies to keep them light. While the breechcloths of racers whipped the air, runners in line had their legs grazed by older men with large eagle feathers to impart power. Later, writer Tracy McCallum kindly sent me his eye-witness account of the September 1980 relays: "Their ages must have varied from four-year-olds to eighty-year-olds. Teles "Good Morning" Reyna, a man in his eighties, ran a lap. I was at the west end of the course and, at about the middle of the race, a young fellow was just about to come to the finish line when one of the whippers (race attendants) reached out with an aspen branch to swat him for being slow. The fellow swerved to avoid the blow and tripped over his own feet, falling head over heels. A great roar of sympathy came out of the crowd of spectators and the whipper crossed over the line to help him back up. He was mildly injured but the whipper and others made a great fuss over him and helped him away. It makes sense that they would both spur him on and care for him during the mishap, since each runner represents the welfare of the entire tribe." |
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