In our family we have always relished Oliver Herford’s nonsense rhymes, including the account of Willie’s displeasure with his goat: 

 “I do not like my billy goat,
  I wish that he was dead;
  Because he kicked me, so he did,
  He kicked me with his head.”

Well, these Parecis Indians enthusiastically play football with their heads.  The game is not only native to them, but I have never heard or read of its being played by any other tribe or people.  They use a light hollow rubber ball, of their own manufacture.  It is circular and about eight inches in diameter.  The players are divided into two sides, and stationed much as in association football, and the ball is placed on the ground to be put in play as in football.  Then a player runs forward, throws himself flat on the ground, and butts the ball toward the opposite side.  This first butt, when the ball is on the ground, never lifts it much and it rolls and bounds toward the opponents.  One or two of the latter run toward it; one throws himself flat on his face and butts the ball back.  Usually this butt lifts it, and it flies back in a curve well up in the air; and an opposite player, rushing toward it, catches it on his head with such a swing of his brawny neck, and such precision and address that the ball bounds back through the air as a football soars after a drop-kick.  If the ball flies off to one side or the other it is brought back, and again put in play.  Often it will be sent to and fro a dozen times, from head to head, until finally it rises with such a sweep that it passes far over the heads of the opposite players and descends behind them.  Then shrill, rolling cries of good-humored triumph arise from the victors; and the game instantly begins again with fresh zest.  There are, of course, no such rules as in a specialized ball-game of civilization; and I saw no disputes.  There may be eight or ten, or many more, players on each side.  The ball is never touched with the hands or feet, or with anything except the top of the head.  It is hard to decide whether to wonder most at the dexterity and strength with which it is hit or butted with the head, as it comes down through the air, or at the reckless speed and skill with which the players throw themselves headlong on the ground to return the ball if it comes low down.  Why they do not grind off their noses I cannot imagine.  Some of the players hardly ever failed to catch and return the ball if it came in their neighborhood, and with such a vigorous toss of the head that it often flew in a great curve for a really astonishing distance.

That night a pack-ox got into the tent in which Kermit and I were sleeping, entering first at one end and then at the other.  It is extraordinary that he did not waken us; but we slept undisturbed while the ox deliberately ate our shirts, socks, and underclothes!  It chewed them into rags.  One of my socks escaped, and my undershirt, although chewed full of holes, was still good for some weeks’ wear; but the other things were in fragments.