Folklore Pamphlets, 1921-1945

              Elder and highbush cranberry stems are used by boys in the making of popguns. The wadding used in these guns is pith or thistledown. Chippewa youths make little whistles out of wild onion stems. The stems are allowed to dry a little and a hole is cut in their sides. The whistling is produced by blowing across their ends. Oneida boys used these stems as pea-shooters for blowing missiles consisting of small .seeds.
Pop guns and bean-shooters are made by the children of other Western tribes.
Some Winnebago youth were warned by their elders not to muti¬ late the horsetail lest the snakes should come. Some, however, played with the giant horsetail, using it as whips or pretended fish- poles. Zuni and Hopi boys also make pea-shooters from hollow plant stems. Dakota Indian boys played a "cactus game" with the low cactus plants which grow on the hilltops. A boy who was a good runner would impale a cactus plant on a stick. This he held out for other boys to shoot at with bows and arrows. When a boy hit the plant the holder would run after him and strike him with the cactus.
Omaha children play a game of jackstraws with stems of prairie joint grass. These are dropped in a little heap. The players in turn try to remove the grass stems with another stem without dis¬ turbing the heap. The boys of this tribe use sunflower stalks as hobby horses. The blossom represents the head of the horse. Often they ride one stalk and trail one or two others behind. These latter are "spare horses." Ponca boys sometimes use large sunflowers as targets in archery contests. To make arrows for their toy bows Plains Indian boys take the stiff' stems of wild grass. A thorn in¬ serted in one end served as a point. Iroquois girls make toy ham¬ mocks out of bunches of grass stems.
Wisconsin Indian children construct a little circle out of grass. This is attached by a piece of twine to the blunt end of a little pointed wooden pin. The ring is tossed up and the player tries to catch it on the pin. A little bundle of grass is sometimes used in¬ stead of a ring.
In playing the game of battledore and shuttlecock Zuni youth construct the latter of ribboned cornhusks fashioned into little pads. These are ornamented on top with small feathers which stand up¬ right. On the Plains, Indian children gather chewing gum from the stem of the compass plant. The cottony fruits of the cottonwood are also chewed. The green and unopened fruits are used as beads and pendants in play.
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