Little Pills, an Army Story: Being Some Experiences of a United States Army Medical Officer on the Frontier Nearly a Half Century AgoMcKay, R. H. (Robert Henderson)
History
Little Pills, an Army Story: Being Some Experiences of a United States Army Medical Officer on the Frontier Nearly a Half Century Ago
McKay, R. H. (Robert Henderson)
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); United States. Army -- Military life
now returning to New York to take up his work as a lecturer on nervous
diseases in the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
While the doctor was visiting with me we went up to San Marcial to
witness the games on St. John's day, June 24th. San Marcial was at that
time a small straggling Mexican village of one street with adobe houses
on each side and all told maybe had one hundred inhabitants. We did not
go into any of the houses and only witnessed one game of any interest,
it was a rough-and-tumble affair and excited great interest among the
Mexicans. A rooster with its legs tied would be buried in a little mound
of sand in the middle of the street, leaving only its head and neck
sticking above the mound. The game was for the horsemen to form in line
some distance up the street and come at full speed swooping down from
the saddle, grab the chicken by the head, and then the battle was on for
the chicken. The possessor of the unfortunate chicken would strike out
over adobe walls and across irrigating ditches, anywhere to get out of
the way of his pursuers and when at last he would be cornered, or
surrounded, a battle royal would follow. I could not determine how the
matter was decided but when the game was over they would come back and
repeat the performance. There were many misses in their efforts to pick
up the rooster, but a few of the contestants were more expert than the
others and several succeeded in swinging down and retrieving the rooster
from the mound of sand. We left while the game was still in progress. In
all the games I witnessed among the Mexicans there appeared the element
of cruelty in some form or other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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