One of the favorite and most exciting games of the Dakotas is ball-playing. A smooth place on the prairie, or in winter, on a frozen lake or river, is chosen. Each player has a sort of bat, called "Tâ-kée-cha-psé-cha," about thirty-two inches long, with a hoop at the lower end four or five inches in diameter, interlaced with thongs of deer-skin, forming a sort of pocket. With these bats they catch and throw the ball. Stakes are set as bounds at a considerable distance from the center on either side. Two parties are then formed and each chooses a leader or chief. The ball (Tâpa) is then thrown up half way between the bounds, and the game begins, the contestants contending with their bats for the ball as it falls. When one succeeds in getting it fairly into the pocket of his bat he swings it aloft and throws it as far as he can toward the bound to which his party is working, taking care to send it if possible where some of his own side will take it up. Thus the ball is thrown and contended for till one party succeeds in casting it beyond the bounds of the opposite party. A hundred players en a side are sometimes engaged in this exciting game. Betting on the result often runs high. Moccasins, pipes, knives, hatchets, blankets, robes and guns are hung on the prize-pole. Not unfrequently horses are staked on the issue and sometimes even women. Old men and mothers are among the spectators, praising their swift-footed sons, and young wives and maidens are there to stimulate their husbands and lovers. This game is not confined to the warriors but is also a favorite amusement of the Dakota maidens, who generally play for prizes offered by the chief or warriors. (See Neill's Hist. Minn., pp 74-5; Riggs' Tâkoo Wakân, pp 44-5, and Mrs. Eastman's Dacotah, p 55.)
Pronounced Wah-zeé-yah—the god of the North, or Winter. A fabled spirit who dwells in the frozen North, in a great teepee of ice and snow. From his mouth and nostrils he blows the cold blasts of winter. He and I-tó-ka-ga Wi câs-ta—the spirit or god of the South (literally the "South Man") are inveterate enemies, and always on the war-path against each other. In winter Wa-zi-ya advances southward and drives I-tó-ka-ga Wi-câs-ta before him to the Summer-Islands. But in spring the god of the South having renewed his youth and strength in the "Happy Hunting Grounds," is able to drive Wa-zi-ya back again to his icy wigwam in the North. Some Dakotas say that the numerous granite boulders scattered over the prairies of Minnesota and Dakota, were hurled in battle by Wa-zi-ya from his home in the North at I-tó-ka-ga Wi-câs-ta. The Wa-zi-ya of the Dakotas is substantially the same as "Ka be-bon-ik-ka"—the "Winter-maker" of the Ojibways.
Mendota—(meeting of the waters) at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. The true Dakota word is Mdó-tè—applied to the mouth of a river flowing into another, also to the outlet of a lake.