TAHLEQUAH, Oklahoma – A friendly spirit of competition was in the air this last week during a demonstration of traditional tribal games, downtown in the Cherokee Nation’s capital city.

Participants were taught to play the game “poison hole” by Cherokee National Treasures Danny McCarter and Noel Grayson. Although similar, McCarter explained how the game differs from traditional Cherokee marbles.

“Traditional marbles is like, a four-hole game. Each hole is like, I want to say 35, but maybe 25 feet [apart] but it’s one, two, three, four,” said McCarter, gesturing to these spots out on the field. “Yeah, it’s like an L-shape, and that game usually played with partners, usually two guys on a team and you have to go to each hole. There is a lot of similarities in the way that we play [poison hole], but that is the traditional game Cherokees have played forever.”

McCarter pointed to “Little Kansas” and Cloud Creek, as well-known places for marbles.

“With us, when we were at the Ancient [Cherokee] Village, we started out with what we call poison hole and usually we start off with one hole — it can be any number of holes — but we’ll start out with one, then another one might be 30 feet away, then [another] 30 feet away and then it goes in a circle,” said McCarter. “Then in the middle is the poison hole.”

Players take turns throwing their balls as close to the hole as possible. If successful in hitting it, they can progress to the next hole. A hit on a hole or ball gives the player another turn. This is repeated until a player hits the “poison hole,” where he or she can knock other players out by hitting their balls.

“Then it’s like a race. You get to the poison hole and then when you hit somebody, they’re out,” said McCarter. “Unless they get to be poison. If they’re poison, then you got to hit them three times. It’s a lot of fun.”

According to McCarter, traditional marbles has stricter rules than poison hole. While he has never played traditional marbles, he has watched others play.

“See, with ours, you can do everything else as long as you keep your foot in one spot. So, you know, our game is more about having fun,” said McCarter. “The traditional marble game is really a kind of – I wouldn’t say serious business, but it’s really a more stringent than the game we play.”

The day’s game had another practical change, trading holes for tent stakes.

“We use the stakes because we don’t have to dig holes then ,and we’ll just put them in there,” said McCarter. “We go to different schools and different places and teach this game, so you don’t want to dig holes in people’s yards or whatever. So we use the tent stakes.”

Several families came to the demonstration on Friday. Maya Stephens, 11, said she had played before. Out on the field, she shared her strategy.

“Try not to get out,” said Maya.

Maya and her sister, Danika Stephens, 9, played several rounds against McCarter. After coming in second place a few times, Danika said she enjoyed herself.

“It was fun,” said Danika. “I’ve played once before.”

Poison hole was chosen for the day because of the intense heat. In the shade outside the Cherokee National History Museum, different groups came in waves to play from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Once the weather cools down, McCarter said he plans to play stickball in the open field next to the museum.

These demonstrations have occurred every Friday since the beginning of July. Throughout all of these games, McCarter described a sense of fun and competition.

“That’s the deal about Cherokees. I mean, we like to have fun and everything else but we’re competitive too. See, it’s like that little girl that was out here,” said McCarter, referring to Danika. “You can see it in her face. “She tried to be really tight-lipped about it, but you tell she was getting mad when she would get put out. But that’s the thing, and I always come up with some kind of game. Like I said, graces, marbles, stickball – it’s all a way to kind of get people together.”