Anthropology 146 Final Paper

National Park Service:  Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail

Games and Pastimes

by Marisa Tsuliji and Kelly Richards

            “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”!  Whether Jack, Juan or Maria, all cultures play games as a means of amusement, socializing, or skill building.  The people in the world of Juan Bautista de Anza were no different.  With that in mind, information has been presented for common games and amusements of Spanish colonial Mexico, and how some of these pastimes might have been adapted to mission life when contact was established with the native people of Alta California.  An important aspect of this research also includes the games and pastimes of the indigenous people who were Anza’s contemporaries in the Mexican province.

I.                   Life in 16^th Century Mexico and the Southwest, and 18^th and

19^th Century Mexico

            The people in most Mexican towns and villages of the early nineteenth century socialized at dances and fiestas, and at “nearly every social gathering an integral part of the entertainment was gambling” (Olivera and Crete 1991: 113).  On most Christian feast-days, cockfighting and gambling were the highlights of the celebration (Olivera and Crete 1991: 114-115, 117). 

            Popular games of chance were simple dice games, loteria, a bingo-like game, and monte, which referred to the “stack of cards or the pile of money” being risked in play (Olivera and Crete 1991: 114-115).  People of all levels of society played these games: soldiers, politicians, merchants, and priests (Katzew 1979: fig. 35; Olivera and Crete 1991: 115)

            Dancing was very popular with the people of Mexico; one of the most popular was the fandango, originally from Spain (Olivera and Crete 1991: 125-126).  The jarabe tapatío was equally popular, and would later become the national dance of Mexico (Katzew 1979: fig. 29; Olivera and Crete 1991: 126). 

            Music and singing were “such an integral part of the Spanish conquerors’ cultural tradition” that the tradition of romantic ballads remained a part of the Spanish tradition in Mexico and what is now the southwestern United States (Campa 1979: 234). 

            On Sundays and holidays, bullfights were popular events.  Bullfights may have been thought of as events at which everyone attended as peers, but social stratification still appeared in who was able to afford the desirable seats in the shade versus those who sat in the sun (Olivera and Crete 1991: 128). 

            Cockfighting was a popular pastime for many Mexicans.  Roosters had sharp knives strapped to their legs, their tail feathers were pulled to upset them and water poured on their heads to make them alert, and then they were released into the ring to attack.  After a few brief rounds, one bird would be dead and the next pair brought into the ring (Olivera and Crete 1991: 115-116). 

            Circuses and acrobatic acts also provided Sunday afternoon entertainment in and around Mexico City (Olivera and Crete 1991: 129).  The theater also provided all varieties of entertainment, such as comedy, drama, opera and religious plays (Campa 1979: 226-227; Olivera and Crete 1991: 131). 

II.        Indigenous Peoples of Alta California

            Juan Bautista de Anza and the members of his expedition encountered many groups of indigenous peoples as they made their way north along the coast of California.  They traversed the land of the Chumash in what are today Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties in 1776 when they camped at sites such as La Rinconada, El Buchón, the Santa Clara River, and Mission San Luís Obispo (Web de Anza 1999).  The Chumash occupied the islands in the Santa Barbara Channel, as well as the area along the Pacific Coast from San Luis Obispo to Malibu Canyon (Sutton 2004: 194).  According to Grant, the climate and abundant food supply of the region gave the coastal Chumash much leisure time, which they devoted to singing, dancing, games, and gambling (1978: 512).  In general, the native peoples of California were able to have leisure time because they had permanent villages, plentiful food, and few wars (Brusa 1989: 43).

                “In the afternoon the chief men came from each town, one after the other,

                adorned according to their usage, painted and loaded with plumage and

                some hollow reeds in their hands, to the movement and noise of which they

                kept time with their songs and the cadence of the dance, in such good time

                and in such unison that it produced real harmony.  These dances lasted all

                the afternoon…” (Bolton 1927: 168).

The Chumash played a variety of games, including the hoop and pole game and shinny.  In the hoop and pole game, contestants attempted to throw a long pole through a small hoop made of bark or tied rushes as the hoop rolled along the ground (Campbell 1978: 512).  In a variation of this game, arrows were shot at a stone disk in an attempt to hit the disk while it was in motion (Gendar 1995: 38).  Shinny was a team game played with a small ball made of hard wood (Campbell 1978: 512).  A curved wooden bat resembling a modern-day hockey stick was used to hit the ball around a field in order to score a goal (Miller 1988: 116).  After the game, the team would go to the sweat lodge (Campbell 1978: 512).  The Chumash also participated in kicking a ball in races from village to village (Sutton 2004: 201).  Villages usually had an athletic/game field (Ibid.: 197).  This playing field was a wide area that had been cleared of rocks and weeds and was surrounded by a fence of tule matting and wooden slats (Miller 1988: 116). 

            The Chumash were also “great gamblers” (Campbell 1978: 512).  Both men and women participated in gambling (Ibid.: 512).  Men wagered the shell money that they kept tied around their topknots (Ibid.: 512).  One gambling game consisted of hiding a stick behind one’s back, and an opponent would guess which hand held the stick (Ibid.: 512).  Dice games were played mostly by women (Sutton 2004: 201).  Dice were walnut or snail shells filled with asphaltum (Campbell 1978: 512).  Some dice were made from half of a black walnut shell that was hollowed out and filled with asphaltum.  (Miller 1988: 116).  This gave each die a round side and a flat side (Ibid.: 116).  The round side sometimes had painted designs, and the flat side was adorned with shell beads (Ibid.: 116).  The women would toss dice across a flat, coiled basket tray and would play for shell beads (Ibid.: 113).  Additionally, gaming sticks made of split wood and pointed at one end were also tossed like dice to see whether the flat side fell up or down (Campbell 1978: 512).  Children’s games were played throughout California and varied from group to group.  Children’s games often consisted of imitating adult occupations in order to learn skills such as fishing, hunting, and dancing (Gendar 1995: 83).  Children also enjoyed juggling, tops, jacks, and string figures (Ibid.: 91-92).

            Another group encountered by the Anza expedition were the Salinan.  The Salinan, who occupied the region where Missions San Antonio de Padua and San Miguel were established, also had games, music and dances (Hester 1978: 500, 502).  Anza’s group stayed as Mission San Antonio for two days in March of 1776 (Web de Anza 1999).  During their stay, they might have seen the following games played.  The Salinan had a bone game, played shinny, participated in ball races, and had games of strength (Ibid.: 502).  They frequently played the game “peu,” in which they used three joined shells or an eagle’s bone, one with a string tied around the middle of it and the other unadorned (Brusa 1989: 43).  The players formed two “sides,” but play was limited to two men on each side.  Each of the players would hide one bone, while members of the other team tried to guess where the unmarked bone was hidden (Ibid.: 43).  The teams took turns in hiding the bones.  Incorrect guesses were paid for with counters, and betting was done by both teams (Ibid.: 43).  If a man was not lucky, he would give his place to a team member, and women stood in for their husbands while they took a break (Ibid.: 43).  According to Kroeber, the Ohlone played a similar game (Ibid.: 43; Kroeber 1925).  Another game consisted of two people locking their middle fingers and pulling in order to determine who was stronger (Brusa 1989: 44).  Salinan families also played indoor games during cold or wet weather (Ibid.: 44).  One such game included passing a bone from hand to hand under rabbit robes, while one person attempted to guess who was holding the bone (Ibid.: 44).    

Like many other indigenous groups, the Salinan performed dances for both social and religious reasons.  Many of the Salinan dances were performed by individuals, with spectators singing and accompanying the dances with music (Brusa 1989: 41).  Salinan musical instruments included bone whistles, wooden rasps, cocoon rattles, musical bows, and flutes and rattles made of elder wood (Hester 1978: 502).  One popular dance among the Salinan was the Kuksu’i dance, in which two dancers impersonated the spirit Kuksui and his consort (Brusa 1989: 41).  The dancers wore headdresses of feathers and red, yellow, and white paint (Ibid.: 41).  No instruments were used in this dance, and singers sat in a row, clapping their hands (Ibid.: 41).  The Salinan also performed animal dances.  These included Deer, Owl, Coyote, and Bear dances, with dancers imitating the actions and cries of the animals (Ibid.: 41).  The Salinan people also enjoyed group dancing on special occasions (Ibid.: 43).  Dances were performed by a row of women and a row of men, alternately resting and dancing, and ten singers with rattles accompanied these dancers (Ibid.: 43).

The Anza expedition would establish the Presidio of San Francisco, Missions San Francisco and Santa Clara and the Pueblo of San Jose among the Ohlone people.  The Ohlone had a variety of dances, songs, and games.  Father Pedro Font describes an incident in 1776 in which he and Anza were invited to an Indian village (Heizer 1974: 13).  As they came into the camp where Font and Anza were staying, one native was making music with a split-stick rattle, which he struck against his hand (Ibid.: 13).  On the way back to the village, the natives danced and sang the entire way (Ibid.: 13).  Ohlone games were similar to those of the Chumash and Salinan and included the hoop and pole game, guessing games, and games using small pieces of wood (Ibid.: 14).  The Ohlone also participated in gambling and games of chance, and they would wager tools, ornaments, and clothing (Heizer 1974: 14).

It is important to note that because many of the descriptions of Native American games and pastimes come from accounts written around the time of missionization, it is not certain whether these activities were taking place prior to contact; however, it is likely that many of these things had been practiced for many years prior to the arrival of Europeans (Heizer 1974: 14).  What is certain is that the contact between the indigenous peoples and the Europeans resulted in a syncretism of cultural traditions, with each group adopting the other’s pastimes either willingly or reluctantly.  For example, traditional Indian songs were sometimes replaced by those taught to them by the missionaries for singing in church and choir (Geiger and Meighan 1976: 134-135).  Neophytes at missions such as San Luís Obispo and San Antonio learned to play instruments supplied by the missionaries, such as cellos, trumpets, violins, and guitars (Ibid.: 134-135).  Native dances of religious significance were discouraged (Brusa 1989: 41).  However, evening entertainment at the missions still took place, with fiestas, dancing, singing, and games (Berger 1948: 79-80).

III.       Life in the Missions

            Guadalupe Vallejo, the nephew of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo who was in charge of the military forces of the province of Alta California, wrote a 19^th century recollection of mission life in Alta California.  In his account, “Ranch and Mission Days in Alta California”, he remembered how happy and peaceful the Spanish, Mexican and Indian populations were before American conquest (DeNevi 1971: 2-3).

            A good deal of Vallejo’s reminiscences came from his mother or his uncle, General Vallejo of Sonoma.  In his writing, he related the story of a beloved priest, Father Real, who was known to accompany young men from the missions on moonlight rides to lasso grizzly bears or chase the deer on the plains; the grizzlies would come to the matanzas (slaughter-corrals) at night where the remains had been thrown into nearby ravines (DeNevi 1971: 12, 20).  Sometimes, the men would drag the captured bears through the village streets and then kill them.  Before feast-days, hunters would capture grizzly bears for the bull and bear fights held at Easter and on the day of the patron saint of the missions; the bear’s hindfoot was tied to the foreleg of the bull to equalize the struggle (Bolton and Adams 1922: 82-83; DeNevi 1971: 20-21; Garrison 1935: 189-190; Williams 2000 4[6:2]: 5-6).  By 1855, the popularity of this sport was on the decline, perhaps due to the reduced number of grizzly bears in California.

            Bull-fighting remained popular in Nueva California (Carter 1900: 92-93).  Holidays and feast-days were popular times for bull-fighting, as well as gambling and games, much as life in Mexico had been prior to colonization of Alta California (Carter 1900:  92-93).

            In the early part of the 19^th century, Alfred Robinson traveled throughout California and published an anonymous account of his encounters with the people of the missions and countryside of California.  While visiting Mission San Gabriel and attending the Sabbath mass, he noted that the remainder of the dias de fiesta was generally given to activities such as gambling, where the Indians of the mission seem to “indulge [in] the most criminal excess, frequently losing all he possesses in the world – his clothes – beads, baubles of all kinds, and even his wife and children!” (Robinson 1947: 21; Williams 2000 4[4:1]: 1; Williams 4[6:2]: 5-6).  While this was going on, other Indian groups were engaged in betting on the horse races taking place on a nearby track (Robinson 1947: 21; Williams 2000 4[6:2]: 5-6).

            As a visitor to Santa Barbara, Robinson described participating in a merienda, a feast with musical entertainment (Carter 1900: 93; Robinson 1947: 126-128).  The hosts arranged for a large party to travel via carts drawn by oxen to an outdoor location in tree-covered hills near a pond.  Robinson hunted while the picnic was set up on a white tablecloth laid on the grass.  There was plenty of food; after dining, boys amused onlookers with games and their riding skills, while some members of the group played guitar and sang.

            Daytime amusements for elite women of the well-to-do kept them close to home, as respectable women did not venture very far on their own.  They spent much of their time strolling through their local gardens and orchards, and were also known to have indulged in gambling (Williams 2000 4[1:2]: 8).  The soldier’s families of the California missions, and the children of the pueblo townspeople and ranchers, played with homemade toys such as clay marbles, wooden tops, pea shooters, and dolls (Williams 2000 4[1:2]: 10; Williams and Davis 2003: 48).

            Pablo Tac, an Indian born at Mission San Luis Rey in 1822, documented life in the mission while he was at the Vatican in Rome in the 1830s, preparing a grammar of the Luiseño language (Beebe and Senkewicz 2001: 329).  His first-hand account described the conversion of Tac’s people, their adaptation to mission ways, and some of the dances and recreation of his people. 

            Tac described a popular native ball game which was played on a level field, a quarter and a half in league, with the male players all between thirty and sixty years of age; between seventy and eighty people played with thirty to forty men on each side (Beebe and Senkewicz 2001: 339-340).  The three to four-hour game was played with sticks, which moved the ball on the ground after it was dug out by two leaders, one from each team.  The goal was to push or pass the ball to a teammate, or to launch the ball toward the team mark in order to score.

            Tac related a particularly competitive game between the Luiseños and the Sanjuaneños (from Mission San Juan Capistrano) which ended up in a brawl.  When the Spanish soldiers arrived after the Sanjuaneños had fled, the Luiseño chief spoke in Spanish to the soldiers, “raise your saber, and then I will eat you” (Beebe and Senkewicz 2001: 340).  After that, there was no more trouble between the Indian groups.

Conclusion   

The colonists of the Spanish frontier enjoyed a variety of games and pastimes, and they brought many of these traditions from Mexico to California.  The native peoples of California had their own games and pastimes prior to contact.  The eventual contact of these two groups resulted in games and pastimes being exchanged and adapted to mission life.  The preceding descriptions give details of what Juan Bautista de Anza might have encountered as his expedition made its way from Mexico to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Research for this project was conducted as part of the Anthropology 146 course taught by Dr. Russell K. Skowronek, “Anthropological Perspectives on the Spanish and Native American Experience”, for the 2004 spring quarter of Santa Clara University.  For their support and encouragement of this project, we would like to thank Meredith Kaplan, Superintendent, and David Smith, Park Ranger-Interpretive Specialist, of the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail.  Special thanks to Dr. Jack S. Williams of the Center for Spanish Colonial Archaeology for graciously making available a draft of his California Mission Studies Association manuscript entitled Los Presidios: Guardians of Alta California’s Mission Frontier.

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