played it in large companies of three or four hundred at a time," while
Charlevoix [Footnote: Histoire de la Nouvelle France. Journal d'un
Voyage. etc, par le P. de Charlevoix, Paris, 1744, Vol. III, p. 319.]
says the number of players was variable and adds "for instance if they
are eighty," thus showing about the number he would expect to find in a
game. When Morgan [Footnote: League of the Iroquois, by Lewis H.
Morgan, Rochester, 1851, p. 294.] speaks of six or eight on a side, he
must allude to a later period, probably after the game was modified by
the whites who had adopted it among their amusements. [Transcriber's
Note: Lengthy footnote (2) relocated to chapter end.]

Our earliest accounts of the game as played by the Indians in the south
are about one hundred years later than the corresponding records in the
north. Adair [Footnote: The History of the American Indians,
particularly those Nations adjoining to the Mississippi, etc, by James
Adam, London, 1775, p. 399.] says the gamesters are equal in number and
speaks of "the crowd of players" preventing the one who "catches the
ball from throwing it off with a long direction." Bossu [Footnote:
Travels through that Part of North America formerly called Louisiana,
by Mr. Bossu, Captain in the French Marines. Translated from the French
by John Hemhold Forster, London, 1771, Vol. I, p. 304.] says, "they are
forty on each side," while Bartram [Footnote: Travels through North and
South Carolina, etc., by William Bartram, Philadelphia, 1701, p. 508.]
says, "the inhabitants of one town play against another in consequence
of a challenge." From this it would seem that among those Indians, as
at the North, the number of players was governed only by the
circumstances under which the game was played.

The ball, originally of wood, [Footnote: La Potherie, Vol. II, p. 126;
Perrot, p. 44.] was replaced by one made of deer skin. Adair gives the