Indian Ball Game- George Catlin

I chose this image by George Catlin called "Indian Ball Game" to analyse as it was the one that stood out to me most when looking through the website http://www.georgecatlin.org. The first thing I noticed when looking at this painting was the wooden posts that stand in the left hand side of the paining. These automatically made me think of modern day American football goal posts. This suggests that the idea of American football may have originally come from a game which the settlers first saw the Native Americans play. As it is suggested that football was first played in the late 1800s this could be likely. Another aspect of this image that implies that this could be where American football comes from is the actions of the Natives. The poses that Catlin's painting suggests the players of the ball game are in are very much recognisable as those of tackles made in contemporary American football. This can be seen mainly in the centre of painting.

It is easy to be drawn to the centre of this painting as it is where all the action and life of the painting is, however I think the bottom left hand corner is an interesting part of the painting to look at. Firstly, you can see the Chief of the Native Americans standing and watching from the side line along with what looks like a group of women. Therefore suggesting that the ball game was a male dominated game. Also the fact that the Chief is watching rather than playing shows that it was a game for the average male, not one of a certain status. In addition to the Chief and Native American women there are settlers also observing the game on their horses which, again can be seen in the bottom left hand corner. This once more reinforces the idea that maybe this is where the concept for American Football came from, it was the settlers who saw this game being played and adapted it to fit a European audience.

One detail within the painting that is intriguing is the use of weaponry in the ball game. All the players, especially the ones around the outside of the field seem to have a spear of some sort. This suggests that the game was quite violent which could be the reason why it appears to be only men that participate. The amount of people that are involved in the game is also an interesting part of the painting. It appears that there is hundreds of people playing this ball game which almost makes it look like a battle rather than just a game that you would play for fun. The use of weaponry also backs up the idea of violence and the game being like a battle.