The Little Brother of War

 I tried writing about this topic for over two decades; I failed again.  The Little Brother of War is the Choctaw's high minded name for their sport of stickball, which in their language is called kabocca towa, (chapucha toli). This translates literally to stickball in English. For centuries this was a rather violent sport used to resolve conflicts between communities and to reallocate wealth through betting. At the time of contact with Europeans, stickball matches involved hundreds of players from two opposing teams on fields that stretched more than a mile with matches that could last for several days. These were and remain spiritual events with both sides aided by powers channelled through religious leaders called ball witches during the contests. While physical injury was common, death was rare. 

(Detail of George Carlin’s painting Ball Play of the Choctaw - Ball Up. The painting was done in Indian Territory around 1846.)

Some years ago I wrote a post about my friend Tom Deitz and mentioned stickball there, and intended then to do a follow-on about stickball, or toli as we called it for simplicity. We played toli at the University of Georgia in Athens as a club sport on the university's intermural fields. The team's founder was Greg Keyes, another author, and the idea of creating the team came to him in  a dream. Greg is one quarter Choctaw and hails from Meridian, Mississippi, not far from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw's reservation. Greg named the team the Flying Rats after a Choctaw story about the origin of the bat in an allegory of birds and mammals playing the first ball game. The Mississippi Choctaw called us the na holos, or white ghosts. Toli and the friends I made playing toli altered the trajectory of my life. I can't figure out how to write about it in a way does does it justice.  

(Choctaw style kabocca and towa, sticks and ball. The sticks are made from young hickory wood and leather thongs. The ball is a small rock wrapped in fabric and then covered in woven leather chord.)

The best I can do is this: My wife played stick ball for a year or so while we were still "just friends".  Back then she was very poetic, and described our toli this way: feel the earth, hit the sky. That captures it better than I can. We played barefoot in the traditional way, and our uniforms were shorts or pants and t-shirts, with shirts often shredded or gone after an intense game. 

The picture above  is one of the few I can find on the internet of the UGA Flying Rats playing a toli game against the Conehatta Skunks from Mississippi. We tended two play each other twice per year, once in Moundville Alabama, neutral ground between the two teams, and once more switching between Athens and Conehatta. The picture above is from Moundville, where we played in the archeological park at an annual Native American festival. These matches were the most contested. Games in Conehatta were always blowouts and felt like an opportunity for natives to takes revenge on whites. 

Toli as we played it was a rough and tumble game with few rules. As the Little Brother of War it was used as a method to resolve conflicts between communities rather than going to actual war. Toli remains an important, maybe integral, part of Choctaw identity today. Most Choctaw communities in Mississippi have a team made of of kid, adult, and old-timer squads, which today include girls and women's teams. (This was a development that the UGA Flying Rats take credit for due to our team always having women and insisting they play in games versus the Mississippi Choctaw team from Conehatta. I'm not sure that the Flying Rats were directly responsible for the Choctaw women's teams, but it is part of our mythology.)

(Two opposing teams playing stickball at the Choctaw Fair (Probably Connehatta in blue and Bogue Chitto in white). This contemporary style at the Fair is as structured as the sport gets. The author joined the Connehatta team at the Choctaw Fair on two occasions, and on a third occasion played with the mixed Choctaw and na holo, or white ghost, team called the Blood Brothers. Na hola is a term Choctaw use for European Americans.) 

Jamie Bishop and Greg Keyes going for the ball after dispatch Cherokee opponents at a stickball game in Albany, Georgia. One side was represented by Cherokee from Cherokee, North Carolina who played  Cherokee style. The other side combined the Flying Rats and Conehatta playing Choctaw style. Choctaw style, featuring fast stick passing skills, won over Cherokee style, which is essentially no holds barred wrestling and sometimes picking up the sticks to run with or throw the ball. Jamie Bishop (fore gound) perished in the Virginia Tech shooting where he was a German teacher. Greg Keyes, who founded the Flying Rats is now a full time writer living in Savanah, Georgia.