At first sight North American Indian and ancient European games appear to be fairly different social activities. Observed closer though, these games and their texture reveal a surprising variety of common features. This paper represents a first attempt to analyse relevant structural similarities (homologies) systematically by focusing upon ball games, in particular. The historical cross-cultural (or trans-atlantic) enterprise is based on two exemplary accounts of folk football and racket, respectively; i.e ., they signify "le take off" of the present ethnographic report which employs a theoretical framework provided by the French Annales-historians and N. Elias' theory of civilization.
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