Ball

Description:

All made from piece of skin cut almost to the edges, then sewn with sinew and stuffed. Skin overlaps at top and folds are sewn tight. Ball ornamented with two crossing red lines (one following the seam). A small loop of cotton twine (approx. 3″ ) is knotted through sinew at top.

References:

Jim Saunders. Them Days. August 1975:45.

Innu Narrative:

“Homemade tuuan (ball). This is how the tuuan was made in the past. It’s sewn together.”  Munik (Gregoire) Rich

“A ball made out of tanned hide. The ball is made out of caribou hide and stuffed with white moss in the past. And the old rags were also used for making homemade balls. It is sewn together so that the moss won’t come out. The uapuskumuk (white moss or lichen) that the caribou eats is the one that is used to stuff the ball with. [MacKenzie lists kuapitsheuahkamuku as “caribou moss, Cladonia impexa”] When I was a child] my ball was made like that, and my sister Madeline (Mishta Matinen) made one for me.”  Pinamen (Rich) Katshinak

“It is made out of pishakan (hide). This is the material that the tuanits (balls) were made out of sometimes. It is hide, but anything can be used, any kind of material. We used it for playing tuan (ball) a long time ago. And anything was stuffed inside the ball. We didn’t have a real tuan in the past.”  Uniam Katshinak

Other Info:

“The Indians used to make balls out of deer skin and stuff them with moss, bog moss. They’d get tanned deer skin and make balls almost the same as baseballs. They’d put moss in a bit of rag and case it in with deer skin, sew it. It was a beautiful ball. They used to play an awful lot of ball. I played with them, of course, I growed up among ‘um. It was something the same as baseball, you hit and run, goin’ from one post to another and someone would try to put you out. They played a lot of football too. The football was made the same way as the baseball, only it was a much bigger ball.” Jim Saunders (Them Days. August 1975:45)