Throwing the Ball

There used to be a game, according to Black Elk, “which was played with a ball, four teams and four goals which were set up at the four quarters. But there are only a few of us today who still understand why the game is sacred, or what the game originally was long ago, when it was not really a game, but one of our most important rites.”

Black Elk says that “Moves Walking received this rite in a vision many winters ago.” But Moves Walking didn’t share it until sometime later after another man, High Hollow Horn, received a vision that the seventh ceremony foretold by White Buffalo Woman had been revealed to Moves Walking.

At the center of the ceremony was a girl. Rattling Hail Woman, a daughter of High Hollow Horn, was the first to perform it. She held a specially painted ball made of buffalo hide stuffed with buffalo hair. The people, dressed in their finest clothes, were grouped to the west of her.

Facing the people, Rattling Hail Woman threw the ball to them. The person who caught it returned the ball to her. Then, in order, Rattling Hail Woman and the people repeated this procedure with the north, east and south directions. Lastly, she threw the ball straight up as high as she could and all the people rushed in to try to retrieve it. The persons who had caught the ball received gifts, and all the people feasted and were happy.

Black Elk. Tapa Wanka Yap: The Throwing of the Ball. In The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux (Brown, Joseph E., ed.), 127-138. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953, 1989.