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INDIAN GAMES 
 
 AN 
 
 HISTORICAL RESEARCH. 
 
 BY ANDREW McFARLAND DAYIS. 
 
 [From the Bulletin of the Essex Institute, Vol. XVII, page 89.] 
 
 PRINTED AT THE SALEM PRESS. 
 
 SALEM, MASS. 
 
 1886. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/indiangameshisto00davi_0 
 
q'lb.U 
 
 J)^ 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 BY ANDREW MCFARLAND DAVIS. 
 
 "There are,” says Father Brebeuf in his account of 
 what was worthy of note among the Ilurons in 1636, 1 
 "three kinds of games particularly in vogue with this peo- 
 ple ; cross, platter, and straw. The first two are, they 
 say, supreme for the health. Does not that excite our 
 pity? Lo, a poor sick person, whose body is hot with 
 fever, whose soul foresees the end of his days, and a mis- 
 erable sorcerer orders for him as the only cooling remedy, 
 \ a game of cross. Sometimes it is the invalid himself who 
 may perhaps have dreamed that he will die unless the 
 country engages in a game of cross for his health. Then, 
 if he has ever so little credit, you will see those who can 
 best play at cross arrayed, village against village, in a 
 beautiful field, and to increase the excitement, they will 
 wager with each other their beaver skins and their neck- 
 
 ^ © 
 
 ^ laces of porcelain beads. 
 
 "Sometimes also one of their medicine men will say 
 that the whole country is ill and that a game of cross is 
 
 vk 
 
 Jf 
 
 1 Relatious des J^suites, Quebec, 1858, p. 113. 
 
 ( 3 ) 
 
4 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 needed for its cure. It is not necessary to say more. The 
 news incontinently spreads everywhere. The chiefs in 
 each village give orders that all the youths shall do their 
 duty in this respect, otherwise some great calamity will 
 overtake the country.” 
 
 LACROSSE. 
 
 In lb67, Nicolas Perrot, then acting as agent of the 
 French government, was received near Saut Sainte Marie 
 with stately courtesy and formal ceremony by the Miamis, 
 to whom he was deputed. A few days after his arrival, 
 the chief of that nation gave him, as an entertainment, a 
 game of laciosse. 2 More than two thousand persons 
 assembled in a great plain each with his cross. A wooden 
 ball about the size of a tennis ball was tossed in the air. 
 From that moment there was a constant movement of all 
 these crosses which made a noise like that of arms which 
 one hears during a battle. Half the savages tried to send 
 the ball to the northwest the length of the field, the 
 others wished to make it go to the southeast. The con- 
 test which lasted for a half hour was doubtful.” 
 
 In 1763, an army of confederate nations, inspired by 
 the subtle influence of Pontiac’s master mind, formed the 
 purpose of seizing the scattered forts held by the English 
 along the northwestern frontier. On the fourth day of 
 June of that year, the garrison at Fort Michilimackinac, 
 unconscious of their impending fate, thoughtlessly lolled 
 at the foot of the palisade and whiled away the day in 
 watching the swaying fortunes of a game of ball which 
 was being played by some Indians in front of the stock- 
 ade. Alexander Henry, who was on the spot at the time, 
 
 2 Histoire de rAm<h-ique Septentrionale par M. de 
 Paris, 1722, Vol. n, 124 et seg. 
 
 Bacqueville de la Potherie, 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 5 
 
 pays that the game played by these Indians was "Baggati- 
 Iway, called by the Canadians le jeu de la Crosse ” z 
 I Parkman * * * 4 concludes a vivid description of the surprise 
 and massacre of the garrison at Michilimackinac, based 
 upon authentic facts, as follows : "Bushing and striking, 
 'tripping their adversaries, or hurling them to the ground, 
 they pursued the animating contest amid the laughter and 
 applause of the spectators. Suddenly, from the midst of 
 the multitude, the ball soared into the air and, descending 
 in a wide curve, fell near the pickets of the fort. This 
 was no chance stroke. It was part of a preconcerted 
 scheme to insure the surprise and destruction of the gar- 
 rison. As if in pursuit of the ball, the players turned 
 and came rushing, a maddened and tumultuous throng, 
 towards the gate. In a moment they had reached it. The 
 amazed English had no time to think or act. The shrill 
 cries of the ball-players were changed to the ferocious 
 war-whoop. The warriors snatched from the squaws the 
 hatchets which the latter, with this design, had concealed 
 beneath their blankets. Some of the Indians assailed the 
 spectators without, while others rushed into the fort, and 
 all was carnage and confusion.” 
 
 Thus we see that the favorite game of ball of the North 
 American Indians, known to-day, as it was in 1636, by the 
 name of " lacrosse,” was potent among them as a reme- 
 dial exercise or superstitious rite to cure diseases and 
 avert disaster ; that it formed part of stately ceremonials 
 which were intended to entertain and amuse distinguished 
 guests ; and that it was made use of as a stratagem of war, 
 
 8 Travels and Adventures in Canada, etc., by Alexander Henry, New York, 1809, 
 
 p. 78; Travels through the Interior parts of North America, by Jonathan Carver 
 London, 1778, p. 19. The Book of the Indians, by Samuel G. Drake, Boston, 1841 
 
 Book v, Ch. ill, p. 52. 
 
 4 The Conspiracy of Pontiac, by Francis Parkman, Boston, 1870. Vol. i, p. 339. 
 
6 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 by means of which to lull the suspicions of the enemy and 
 to gain access to their forts. 
 
 The descriptions of lacrosse which have been transmitted 
 to us, would often prove unintelligible to one who had 
 never seen the game played. The writers of the accounts 
 which have come down to us from the early part of the 
 seventeenth century were men whose lives were spent 
 among the scenes which they described and they had but 
 little time, and few opportunities for careful writing. The 
 individual records though somewhat confused enable us 
 easily to identify the game, and a comparison of the 
 different accounts shows how thoroughly the main features 
 of the game have been preserved. 
 
 Lacrosse is played to-day as follows : The number of 
 players on the opposing sides should be equal. Regular 
 stations are assigned in the rules for playing the game, 
 for twelve on each side. Goals, each consisting of two 
 upright posts or staffs, generally about six feet apart and 
 of equal height, are planted at each end of the field. The 
 length of the field and its bounds are determined by the 
 character of the ground and the skill of the players. 
 The effort of each side is to prevent the ball from passing 
 through the goal assigned to its protection, and equally to 
 try to drive it through the opposite goal. Under no cir- 
 cumstances can the ball be touched during the game, 
 while within the bounds, by the hands of the players. 
 Each player has a racket, the length of which, though op- 
 tional, is ordinarily from four to five feet. One end of 
 this racket or bat is curved like a shepherd’s crook, and 
 from the curved end a thong is carried across to a point 
 on the handle about midway its length. In the space 
 thus enclosed between the thong and the handle, which at 
 its broadest part should not exceed a foot in width, a flat 
 network is interposed. This forms the bat. It is with 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 7 
 
 | 
 
 t^riis that the player picks up and throws the ball used 
 iji the game, which should be about eight or nine inches 
 ip circumference. The ball is placed in the centre of the 
 field by the umpire, and when the game is called, the op- 
 posing players strive to get possession of it with their 
 rackets. The play consists in running with it and throw- 
 ing it, with the design of driving it between the adversary’s 
 goal posts ; and in defensive action, the purpose of which is 
 to prevent the opponents from accomplishing similar de- 
 signs on their part. As the wind or the sunlight may 
 i|avor one side or the other on any field, provision is gen- 
 erally made for a change of goals during the match. The 
 stations of the players and the minor rules of the game 
 are unimportant in this connection. 
 
 The oldest attempt at a detailed description of the game 
 is given by Nicolas Perrot who from 1662 to 1699 spent 
 the greater part of his time as coureur de bois , trader, or 
 government agent, among the Indians of the far West. 
 It is of him that Abbe Ferland says, " Courageous man, 
 honest writer and good observer, Perrot lived for a long 
 time among the Indians of the West who were very much 
 attached to him.” His accounts of the manners and cus- 
 toms of the North American Indians have been liberally 
 used by subsequent writers and as the part treating of 
 games is not only very full but also covers a very early 
 period of history, it is doubly interesting for purposes of 
 comparison with games of a later day. He 5 says, "The 
 savages have many kinds of games in which they delight. 
 Their natural fondness for them is so great that they will 
 neglect food and drink, not only to join in a game but 
 even to look at one. There is among them a certain game 
 
 6 MOrtoire snrles Moeurs, Coustumes et Relligion des Sauvages de l’Amerique 
 Septentrionale, par Nicolas Perrot, Leipzig et Paris, 1864, p. 43, et seq. 
 
8 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 of cross which is very similar to our tennis. Their cus- 
 tom in playing it is to match tribe against tribe, and if 
 the numbers are not equal they render them so by with- 
 drawing some of the men from the stronger side. You 
 see them all armed with a cross, that is to say a stick 
 which has a large portion at the bottom, laced like a 
 racket. The ball with which they play is of wood and of 
 nearly the shape of a turkey’s egg. The goals of the 
 game are fixed in an open field. These goals face to the 
 east and to the west, to the north and to the south.” 
 Then follows a somewhat confused description of the 
 method and the rules of the contest from which we can 
 infer that after a side had won two goals they changed 
 sides of the field with their opponents, and that two out 
 of three, or three out of five goals decided the game. 
 
 Reading Perrot’s description in connection with that 
 given by de la Potherie of the game played before Perrot 
 by the Miamis, helps us to remove the confusion of the 
 account. Abbe Ferland 6 describes the game. He was 
 a diligent student of all sources of authority upon these 
 subjects and was probably familiar with the modern 
 mime. His account of the Indian game follows that of 
 Perrot so closely as to show that it was his model. It is, 
 however, clear and distinct in its details, free from the 
 confusion which attends Perrot’s account and might al- 
 most serve for a description of the game as played by the 
 Indians to-day. Perrot was a frontier-man and failed when 
 he undertook to describe anything that required careful 
 and exact use of language. We can only interpret him 
 intelligently by combining his descriptions with those of 
 other writers and applying our own knowledge of the game 
 as we see it to-day. He is, however, more intelligible 
 
 6 Cours d’Histoire du Canada, par J. B. A. Ferland, Quebec, 1861, Vol. I, p. 
 134. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 9 
 
 when he gets on more general ground, and after having 
 disposed of the technicalities of the game, he proceeds : 
 ” Men, women, boys and girls are received on the sides 
 which they make up, and they wager between themselves 
 more or less according to their means.” 
 
 " These games ordinarily begin after the melting of the 
 ice and they last even to seed time. In the afternoon 
 one sees all the players bedecked 7 and painted. Each 
 party has its leader who addresses them, announcing to his 
 players the hour fixed for opening the game. The players 
 assemble in a crowd in the middle of the field and one 
 of the leaders of the two sides, having the ball in his hands 
 casts it into the air. Each one then tries to throw it to- 
 wards the side where he ought to send it. If it falls to 
 the earth, the player tries to draw it to him with his cross. 
 If it is sent outside the crowd, then the most active play- 
 ers, by closely pursuing it, distinguish themselves. You 
 hear the noise which they make striking against each 
 other and warding off blows, in their strife to send the 
 ball in the desired direction. When one of them holds 
 the ball between his feet, it is for him, in his unwilling- 
 ness to let it go, to avoid the blows which his adversaries 
 incessantly shower down upon his feet. Should he hap- 
 pen to be wounded at this juncture, he alone is responsible 
 for it. It has happened that some have had their legs 
 broken, others their arms and some have been killed. 
 It is not uncommon to see among them those who are crip- 
 pled for life and who could only be at such a game by an 
 
 7 I translate apiffez , “ bedecked,” assuming from the context that the author 
 meant to writ.i “ attifez .” We have, elsewhere, accounts which show that ball- 
 players, even though compelled to play with scant clothing, still covered them- 
 selves with their ornaments. J. M. Stanley in his Portraits of North Amei’ican 
 Indians, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Washington, 1862, Vol. n, p. 13, 
 says that the “ Creek” ball-players first appear on the ground in costume. “ Dur- 
 ing the play they divest themselves of all their ornaments which are usually dis- 
 played on these occasions for the purpose of betting on the result of the play. ” 
 
10 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 act of sheer obstinacy. When accidents of this kind 
 happen, the unfortunate withdraws quietly from the game 
 if he can do so. If his injury will not permit him, his 
 relations carry him to the cabin and the game continues 
 until it is finished as if nothing had happened.” 
 
 " When the sides are equal the players will occupy an 
 entire afternoon without either side gaining any advan- 
 tage ; at other times one of the two will gain the two 
 games that they need to win. In this game you would 
 say to see them run that they looked like two parties 
 who wanted to fight. This exercise contributes much to 
 render the savages alert and prepared to avoid blows 
 from the tomahawk of an enemy, when they find them- 
 selves in a combat. Without being told in advance that 
 it was a game, one might truly believe that they fought 
 in open country. Whatever accident the game may cause, 
 they attribute it to the chance of the game and have no 
 ill will towards each other. The suffering is for the 
 wounded, who bear it contentedly as if nothing had hap- 
 pened, thus making it appear that they have a great deal 
 of courage and are men.” 
 
 " The side that wins takes whatever has been put up on 
 the game and whatever there is of profit, and that without 
 any dispute on the part of the others when it is a question 
 of paying, no matter what the kind of game. Neverthe- 
 less, if some person who is not in the game, or who has 
 not bet anything, should throw the ball to the advan- 
 tage of one side or the other, one of those whom the 
 throw would not help would attack him, demanding if 
 this is his affair and why he has mixed himself with it. 
 They often come to quarrels about this and if some of the 
 chiefs did not reconcile them, there would be blood shed 
 and perhaps some killed.” 
 
 Originally, the game was open to any number of com- 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 11 
 
 petitors. According to the Relation of 1636, "Village 
 was pitted against village.” " Tribe was matched against 
 tribe,” says Perrot. The number engaged in the game 
 described by La Potherie 8 was estimated by him at two 
 thousand. LaHontan 9 says that "the savages commonly 
 played it in large companies of three or four hundred at 
 a time,” while Charlevoix 10 says the number of players 
 was variable and adds "for instance if they are eighty,” 
 thus showing about the number he would expect to find 
 in a game. When Morgan * 11 speaks of six or eight on a 
 side, he must allude to a later period, probably after the 
 game was modified by the whites who had adopted it 
 among their amusements. 12 
 
 Our earliest accounts of the game as played by the In- 
 dians in the south are about one hundred years later than 
 the corresponding records in the north. Adair 13 says the 
 
 8 Vol. IT, p. 126. 
 
 9 Memoires de L’Amerique Septentrionale, ou la Suite des Voyages de Mr. Le 
 Baron de LaHontan, Amsterdam, 1705, Vol. n, p. 113. 
 
 10 Histoire de la Nouvelle France. Journal d’un Voyage, etc., par le P. de Char- 
 levoix, Paris, 1744, Vol. Ill, p. 319. 
 
 11 League of the Iroquois, by Lewis II. Morgan, Rochester, 1851, p. 294. 
 
 12 The game is also mentioned in An Account of the Remarkable Occurrences 
 in the Life and Travels of Col. James Smith during his Captivity with the Indians 
 in the years 1755-1759. Cincinnati, 1870, p. 78. It is described by Col. William L. 
 Stone in his Life of Brant, Albany, 1865, Vol. II, p. 448. In one game of which he 
 speaks, the ball was started by a young and beautiful squaw who was elaborately 
 dressed for the occasion. Notwithstanding the extent and value of Col. Stone’s 
 contributions to the literature on the subject of the North American Indians, he 
 makes the erroneous statement that “ The Six Nations had adopted from the 
 Whites the popular game of ball or cricket.” See p. 445, same volume, c.f. The 
 Memoir upon the late War in North America, 1755-1760, by M. Pouchot, translated 
 and edited by Franklin B. Hough, Vol. II, p. 195. A game of ball is also described 
 in Historical Collections of Georgia, liy the Rev. George White, 3d edition, New 
 York, 1855, p. 670, whicli took place in Walker County, Georgia, between Chatooga 
 and Chicamauga. The ball was thrown up at the centre. The bats were described 
 as curiously carved spoons. If the ball touched the ground the play stopped and it 
 was thrown up again. Rev. J. Owen Dorsey in a paper entitled “Omaha Soci- 
 ology,” printed in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, etc. 
 1881-1882, Washington, 1884, §230, p. 336, describes the game amongst the Omahas. 
 
 ,3 The History of the American Indians, particularly those Nations adjoining to 
 the Mississippi, etc., by James Adair, London, 1775, p. 399. 
 
12 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 gamesters are equal in number and speaks of "the crowd of 
 players” preventing the one who "catches the ball from 
 throwing it off with a long direction.” Bossu 14 says, "they 
 are forty on each side,” while Bartram 15 says, "the inhab- 
 itants of one town play against another in consequence of 
 a challenge.” From this it would seem that among those 
 Indians, as at the North, the number of players was gov- 
 erned only by the circumstances under which the game 
 was played. 
 
 The ball, originally of wood , 16 was replaced by one made 
 of deer skin. Adair gives the following description of its 
 manufacture : "The ball is made of a piece of scraped deer- 
 skin, moistened, and stuffed hard with deer’s hair, and 
 strongly sewed with deer’s sinews .” 17 
 
 According to Morgan the racket has undergone a similar 
 change, from a curved wooden head to the curved stick 
 with open network, but we have seen in the earliest de- 
 scription at our command, that in the days of Perrot the 
 cross was "laced like a racket .” 18 
 
 The game was played not only by the Indians of our 
 Coast, but Powers 19 found it also among the Californian In- 
 dians. He describes a game of tennis played by the Porno 
 Indians in Russian River Valley, of which he had heard 
 nothing among the northern tribes. "A ball is rounded 
 out of an oak knot as large as those used by school boys, 
 and it is propelled by a racket which is constructed of a 
 
 14 Travels through that Part of North America formerly called Louisiana, by Mr. 
 Bossu, Captain in the French Marines. Translated from the French by John Rein- 
 hold Forster, London, 1771, Vol. I, p. 304. 
 
 10 Travels through North and South Carolina, etc., by William Bartram, Philadel- 
 phia, 1791, p. 508. 
 
 16 La Potherie, Vol. II, p. 126; Perrot, p. 44. 
 
 « p. 400. 
 
 “League of the Iroquois, p. 298; Perrot p. 44. 
 
 ^Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. ill, p. 151. Tribes of Cali- 
 fornia by Stephen Powers; The same game is described among the Meewocs in 
 The Native Races of the Pacific States by H. II. Bancroft, Vol. I, p. 393. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 13 
 
 long slender stick, bent double and bound together, leav- 
 ing a circular hoop at the extremity, across which is woven 
 a coarse mesh work of strings. Such an implement is not 
 strong enough for batting the ball, neither do they bat it, 
 but simply shove or thrust it along the ground.” 
 
 Paul Kane 20 describes a game played among the Chi- 
 nooks. He says "They also take great delight in a game 
 with a ball which is played by them in the same manner 
 as the Cree, Chippewa and Sioux Indians. Two poles are 
 erected about a mile apart, and the company is divided 
 into two bands armed with sticks, having a small ring or 
 hoop at the end with which the ball is picked up and 
 thrown to a great distance, each party striving to get the 
 ball past theif own goal. They are sometimes a hundred 
 on a side, and their play is kept up with great noise and 
 excitement. At this play they bet heavily as it is gener- 
 ally played between tribes or villages.” 
 
 Domenech 21 writing about the Indians of the interior, 
 calls the game "cricket,” and says the pla}^ers were cos- 
 tumed as follows : "Short drawers, or rather a belt, the 
 body being first daubed over with a layer of bright colors ; 
 from the belt (which is short enough to leave the thighs 
 free) hangs a long tail, tied up at the extremity with long 
 horsehair; round their necks is a necklace, to which is 
 attached a floating mane, dyed red, as is the tail, and fall- 
 ingin the way of a dress fringe over the chest and shoulders. 
 * * In the northwest, in the costume indispensable to the 
 players, feathers are sometimes substituted for horse hair.” 
 He adds "that some tribes play with two sticks” and that 
 it is played in "winter on the ice.” "The ball is made of 
 wood or brick covered with kid-skin leather, sometimes of 
 
 20 Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America by Paul Kane, 
 p. 190; H. H. Bancroft’s Native Races, Vol. I, p. 244. 
 
 21 Seven Years’ Residence in the Great Deserts of North America by the Abbe 
 Em. Domenech, Vol. ii, pp. 192, 193. 
 
14 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 leather curiously interwoven.” Schoolcraft describes the 
 game as played in the winter on the ice . 22 
 
 It will be observed that the widest difference prevails in 
 the estimate of the distance apart at which the goals are 
 set. Henry, in his account of the game at Michilimackinac 
 says "they are at a considerable distance from each other, 
 as a mile or more.” Charlevoix places the goals in a game 
 with eighty players at "half a league apart” meaning prob- 
 ably half a mile. LaHontan estimates the distance between 
 the goals at "live or six hundred paces.” Adair , 23 who is 
 an intelligent writer, and who was thoroughly conversant 
 with the habits and customs of the Cherokees, Choctaws, 
 and Chicasaws estimates the length of the field at "five 
 hundred yards,” while Romans 24 in descrimng the goals 
 uses this phrase "they fix two poles across each other at 
 about a hundred and fifty feet apart.” Bossu 25 speaks as if 
 in the game which he saw played there was but a single 
 goal. He says "They agree upon a mark or aim about 
 sixty yards off, and distinguished by two great poles, be- 
 tween which the ball is to pass.” 
 
 The goals among the northern Indians were single posts 
 at the ends of the field. It is among the southern Indians 
 that we first hear of two posts being raised to form a sort 
 of gate through or over which the ball must pass. Adair 
 says, "they fix two bending poles into the ground, three 
 yards apart below, but slanting a considerable way OUt- 
 
 22 Schoolcraft’s North American Indians, Vol n, p. 78; See also Ball-play among 
 the Dacotas, in Philander Prescott’s paper, Ibid, Vol. iv, p. 64. 
 
 23Henry, p. 78; Charlevoix Vol. in, p. 819; Kane’s Wanderings, p. 189; LaHon- 
 tan, Vol. II, p. 118; Adair, p. 400. 
 
 2<A concise Natural History of East and West Florida, by Capt. Bernard Ro- 
 mans, New York, 1776, p. 79. 
 
 2®Vol. I, p. 304; Similarly, Pickett (History of Alabama, Vol. I, p. 92) describes 
 a game among the Creeks in which there was but one goal, consisting of two poles 
 erected in the centre of the field between which the ball must pass to count one. 
 He cites “Bartram,” and the “ Narrative of a Mission to the Creek Nation by Col. 
 Mariuus Willett,” as his authorities. Neither ol' them sustains him on this poiut. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 15 
 
 wards. The party that happens to throw the ball over 
 these counts one; but if it be thrown underneath, it is 
 cast back and played for as usual.” The ball is to be 
 thrown "through the lower part” of the two poles which 
 are fixed across each other at about one hundred and fifty 
 feet apart, according to Romans. In Bossu’s account it is 
 "between” the two great poles which distinguish the mark 
 or aim, that "the ball is to pass.” On the other band, 
 Bartram, describing what he saw in North Carolina, speaks 
 of the ball "being hurled into the air, midway between the 
 two high pillars which are the goals, and the party who 
 bears off the ball to their pillar wins the game.” 
 
 In some parts of the south each player had two rackets 
 between which the ball was caught. For this purpose 
 they were necessarily shorter than the cross of the north- 
 ern Indians. Adair says, "The ball sticks are about two 
 feet long, the lower end somewhat resembling the palm of 
 a hand, and which are worked with deer-skin thongs. Be- 
 tween these they catch the ball, and throw it a great dis- 
 tance .” 26 
 
 That this was not universal throughout the south would 
 appear from Bossu’s account who says, "Every one has a 
 battledoor in his hand about two feet and a half long, made 
 very nearly in the form of ours, of walnut, or chestnut 
 wood, and covered with roe-skins.” Bartram also says 
 that each person has "a racquet or hurl, which is an imple- 
 ment of a very curious construction somewhat resembling 
 a ladle or little hoop net, with a handle near three feet in 
 length, the hoop and handle of wood and the netting of 
 thongs of raw-hide or tendons of an animal.” 
 
 Catlin 27 saw the game played by the Choctaws on their 
 
 2fl Adair, p. 400 ; A Narrative of the Military Adventures of Colonel Marinus Wil- 
 lett, p. 109. 
 
 27 Lettersand Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North Amer- 
 ican Indians, by George Catlin, Vol. II, p. 123 et seq. 
 
16 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 Western Reservation. They used two rackets. In this 
 game the old men acted as judges. 
 
 The game was ordinarily started by tossing the ball into 
 the air in the centre of the field. This act is represented 
 by Perrot as having been performed by one of the leaders 
 in the game, but it is more in accord with the spirit in 
 which the game was played, that it should have been done 
 by some outsider. Bossu says, "An old man stands in the 
 middle of the place appropriated to the play, and throws 
 up into the air a ball of roe-skins rolled about each other,” 
 while Powers 28 says that among the Calilornian Indians 
 this act was performed by a squaw. The judges started the 
 ball ariiong the Choctaws . 29 Notwithstanding the differ- 
 ences in the forms of the goals, their distance apart and the 
 methods of play disclosed in all these descriptions, the 
 game can only be regarded as the same. The historians 
 who have preserved for us the accounts of the ancient 
 southern games from which quotations have been made, 
 are all Englishmen except Bossu, and he entered the coun- 
 try not by the way of Quebec but by way of New Orleans. 
 It is not strange, therefore, that we do not find in use 
 amongst them the name which the early French fathers 
 and traders invariably applied to the game. The descrip- 
 tion, however, given by these writers, of the racket used 
 in the south, corresponds so closely with the crook from 
 which the game took the name by which it is known, that 
 we must accept the game as a modified form of lacrosse. 
 From Maine to Florida, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
 we trace a knowledge of it. We have found it in use 
 among the confederate nations of the north and of the 
 south and among scattered tribes throughout the country. 
 
 In the majority of instances the natural instincts of those 
 
 ^Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. Ill, p. 151. 
 2y Cutlin, Vol. II, p. 125. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 17 
 
 who participated in the strife were stimulated by local 
 pride. The reputation of their tribe or their village 
 rested upon the result. Ardent as the spirit of the contest 
 must necessarily have been under such circumstances, 
 among a people where courage and physique counted for 
 so much, their intense passion for gambling intervened to 
 fan into fiercer flames the spirits of the Contesting players 
 and to inspire them to more earnest efforts. Stakes, often 
 of the utmost consequence to the players and their back- 
 ers, were wagered upon the games. A reputation for 
 courage, for skill and for endurance, was the most valua- 
 ble possession of the Indian. The maintenance of this 
 was to a certain extent involved in each game that he 
 
 N. 
 
 played. Oftentimes in addition to this, all of his own pos- 
 sessions and the property of his friends and neighbors in 
 the form of skins and beads were staked upon the result 
 of the contest. In games where so much was involved, 
 we need not be surprised to learn from Perrot that limbs 
 were occasionally broken and that sometimes players were 
 even killed. In the notes to Perrot’s Memoir it is stated 
 that some anonymous annotator has written across the 
 margin of Perrot’s manuscript at this point : 30 " False, nei- 
 ther arms nor legs are broken, nor are players ever killed.” 
 We scarcely need the corroboratory statements of La Po- 
 therie 31 that " these games are ordinarily followed by bro- 
 ken heads, arms and legs, and often people are killed at 
 them and also of LaHontan , 32 that "they tear their skins 
 and break their legs” at them, to satisfy us that Perrot 
 rather than his critic is to be believed. If no such state- 
 ments had been made, we should infer that so violent a 
 game, on which stakes of such vital importance were placed, 
 could not be played by a people like the Indians, except 
 with such results. 
 
 so Perrot, Note I, Ch. x, p. 187. 81 VoJ. n, pp. 126-127. 31 Vol. II, p. 113. 
 
18 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 Notwithstanding the violence of the game and the deep 
 interest which the players and spectators took in it, the 
 testimony of historians is uniform to the effect that ac- 
 cidental injuries received during its progress produced 
 no ill will. We have seen that Perrot states that if any- 
 one attempted to Hold the ball with his feet, he took his 
 chance of injury, and that those who were injured retired 
 quietly from the field. Adair says, "It is a very unusual 
 thing to see them act spitefully, not even in this severe 
 and tempting exercise.” Bossu bears testimony to the 
 same effect, in the following words : "The players are 
 never displeased ; some old men, who assist at the play, 
 become mediators, and determine that the play is only 
 intended as a recreation, and not as an opportunity of 
 quarrelling.” 
 
 Where the game was played by appointment in response 
 to a challenge, the men and women assembled in their 
 best ornaments, and danced and sang during the day 
 and night previous to that of the appointed day. The 
 players supplicated the Great Spirit for success. Female 
 relations chanted to him all the previous night and the 
 men fasted from the previous night till the game was over . 33 
 The players wore but little in the way of covering. Ro- 
 mans speaks of them as being "almost naked, painted and 
 ornamented with feathers and Bossu says they were "na- 
 ked, painted with various colours, having a tyger tail fast- 
 ened behind, and feathers on their heads and arms.” 
 
 It is not astonishing that a game which called for such 
 vigorous exercise 34 and which taxed the strength, agility 
 and endurance of the players to such a degree, should be 
 described by writers in terms which showed that they 
 
 ** Adair, p. 401; Bossu, Vol. i, p. 304; and Willett’s Narrative p. 109. 
 
 84 Ferland, Vol. I, p. 134, and Major C. Swan in a Report concerning the Creeks in 
 1791, Schoolcraft, Vol. v, p. 277, assert that the Whites excel the Indians at this 
 game. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 19 
 
 looked upon it rather in the light of a manly contest than 
 as an amusement. Nevertheless the young people and 
 the women often took part in it. Perrot tells us so, and 
 both Romans and Bossu say that after the men were through, 
 the women usually played a game, the bets on which were 
 generally high. Powers 35 represents the squaws among the 
 Californian Indians as joining the game. 
 
 Dexterity in the game lay in the skilful use of the rack- 
 et ; in rapid running ; in waylaying an adversary when he 
 .was in possession of the ball ; in avoiding members of the 
 opposing side when the player himself was running with 
 the ball for the goal, and in adroitly passing the ball to 
 one of the same side when surrounded by opponents. To 
 give full scope to skill in the use of the racket, great 
 stress was laid upon the rule that the ball was not to be 
 touched by the hand. Perrot says, " if it falls to the earth 
 he tries to draw it to him with his cross.” Charlevoix says, 
 "Their business is to strike the ball to the post of the adverse 
 party without letting it fall to the ground and without 
 touching it with the hand.” Adair says, " They are not 
 allowed to catch it with their hands.” 
 
 The early writers were struck with the fact that the char- 
 acter of the exercise in this game was fitted to develop 
 the young warriors for the war path, and they commented 
 on the practice that they thus acquired in rapid running 
 and in avoiding blows from an instrument in the hands of 
 an adversary. 
 
 \ When we review the various features of the game which 
 its chroniclers have thought worthy of record, we can but 
 conclude that it was rather a contest of grave importance 
 to the players than a mere pastime, nor can we fail to ac- 
 cept the concurrent testimony as to the widespread terri- 
 
 36 Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. in, p. 151. 
 
20 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 tory in which it was domesticated, as additional evidence 
 of the extent of the intercourse which prevailed among 
 the native tribes of this country. 
 
 PLATTER OR DICE. 
 
 The second in the list of games given by Father Bre- 
 beuf is that which he calls "platter.” Writers who des- 
 cribe the habits of the Indians at the north have much to 
 say concerning this game. According to Lescarbot, Jac- 
 ques Cartier saw it played, and recorded his observations. 36 
 
 Sagard Theodat 37 devotes considerable space to it. 
 Both Father Brebeuf, in his Relation in 1636, and Father 
 Lalemant, in his Relation in 1639, give long accounts of 
 the game, the causes for its being played, the excesses in 
 gambling to which it leads, and the methods which pre- 
 vail in its practice. In Per rot’s 38 work there is a good de- 
 scription of the game, although not so full as his account 
 of lacrosse, from which we have already quoted. La 
 Potherie and LaHontan barely mention it. Lafitau 39 in 
 his searching analysis of the manuscripts deposited at Que- 
 bec, while seeking for traces of his theory that a resem- 
 blance existed between the habits of the Indians and those 
 of the ancient dwellers in eastern Europe, found an un- 
 usual quantity of material bearing on this particular topic, 
 which he has reproduced in his book. Charlevoix 40 , in 
 a letter dated June 8, 1721, says, "As I was returning 
 through a quarter of the Huron village, I perceived a num- 
 ber of these Indians, who seemed much heated at play. I 
 
 38 Histoive de la Nouvelle France par Marc Lescarbot, Nouvelle Edition, Paris 
 18«6, Vol. Ill, p. 754. 
 
 * 7 Histoire du Canada, etc., par Gabriel Sagard Theodat; Nouvelle Edition, 
 Paris, 1866, Vol. I, pp. 243-244. 
 
 »» p. 50. 
 
 39 Mceurs des Sauvages Ameriquains, etc., par le P. Lafitau, Paris, 1724, Vol. 
 II, p. 339. 
 
 80 Vol. Ill, pp. 260-1. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 21 
 
 approached them and found that the game they were play- 
 ing at was what they called the game of platter. This is 
 the mime to which the Indians are addicted above all 
 
 O 
 
 others. They sometimes lose their rest and in some de- 
 gree their very senses at it. They stake all they are worth, 
 and several of them have been known to continue at it till 
 they have stript themselves stark naked and lost all their 
 movables in their cabin. Some have been known to stake 
 their liberty for a certain time. This circumstance proves 
 beyond all doubt how passionately fond they are of it, 
 there being no people in the world more jealous of their 
 liberty than our Indians.” 
 
 In the description which Charlevoix then gives, he has 
 relied partly upon personal observations and also to some 
 extent, upon accounts which were at that time in manu- 
 script in Quebec and which were easily accessible to 
 him. He was himself an intelligent observer and a cul- 
 tivated man. His history and his letters, although not 
 free from the looseness of expression which pervades con- 
 temporaneous accounts show on the whole the disci- 
 pline of an educated mind. We learn from him and from 
 the authorities heretofore enumerated that two players 
 only from each side could participate in this game at any 
 given time during its progress. The necessary imple- 
 ments were a bowl and a number of dice fashioned some- 
 what like apricot seeds, and colored differently upon the 
 upper and lower sides. Generally, one side was white 
 and the other black. The number of these dice was gen- 
 erally six. There was no fixed rule as to the materials of 
 which they were made ; sometimes they were of bone ; 
 sometimes the stones of fruits were used. The impor- 
 tant point was that the centre of gravity of each die 
 should be so placed, that when it was thrown into the 
 air, or when the bowl in which it was placed, was vio- 
 
22 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 lently twirled, there would be an even chance as to which 
 of its two sides the die would settle upon when it lodged ; 
 and in the game as it was played in early times that the 
 whole number of dice used should be uniform in the col- 
 oring of the sides, each die having the different sides 
 of different colors. The dice were placed in the bowl 
 which was generally of wood, between the two players 
 who were to cast them in behalf of their respective sides. 
 These casters or throwers were selected by each side and 
 the prevailing motives in their choice were generally 
 based upon some superstitious belief in their luck. Per- 
 haps this one had dreamed that he would win. Perhaps 
 that one was believed to possess some magic power, 
 or some secret ointment which when applied to the dice 
 would cause them to turn up favorably for his side . 41 The 
 spectators were generally arranged in seats along the sides 
 of the cabin 42 , placed in tiers so that each person could 
 have a view of the players. They were in more senses 
 than one deeply interested in the game. When the cast 
 was to be made the player would strike the bowl upon the 
 ground so as to make the dice jump into the air 43 and 
 would then twirl the bowl rapidly around. During this 
 process and until it stopped its revolutions and the dice 
 finally settled, the players addressed the dice and beat 
 themselves on their breasts . 44 The spectators during the 
 same period filled the air with shouts and invoked aid 
 from their own protecting powers, while in the same 
 breath they poured forth imprecations on those of their 
 adversaries. The number of points affected the length of 
 the game and was entirely optional. If six dice were used 
 
 41 Relations ties Jesuites, Relation en l’Ann^e, 1636, p. 113. 
 
 42 Ibid, Relation en l’Annee, 1639, p. 95. 
 
 4S Sagard Theodat, Vol. I, p. 213. 
 
 44 Shea’s Hennepin, p. 300. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 23 
 
 and all came up of the same color, the throw counted 
 five . 45 If five of them were of the same color it counted 
 one. Any lower number failed to count. If the caster 
 was unsuccessful he gave place to another, but so long 
 as he continued to win his side would retain him in that 
 position . 46 
 
 The game was often ushered in with singing. Like la- 
 crosse it was prescribed as a remedy for sickness or in 
 consequence of dreams, and the sufferer in whose behalf 
 the game was played was borne to the cabin in which it 
 was to take place. Preliminary fasting and continence 
 were observed, and every effort made that superstition 
 could suggest to discover who would be the lucky thrower 
 and who could aid the caster by his presence at the con- 
 test. Old men, unable to walk thither, were brought up 
 on the shoulders of the young men that their presence 
 might be propitious to the chances of the game . 47 The 
 excitement which attended one of these games of chance 
 was intense, especially when the game reached a critical 
 point and some particular throw was likely to terminate 
 it. Charlevoix says the games often lasted for five or six 
 days 48 and oftentimes the spectators concerned in the 
 game, " are in such an agitation as to be transported out 
 of themselves to such a degree that they quarrel and fight, 
 which never happens to the Hurons, except on these occa- 
 sions or when they are drunk.” 
 
 Perhaps rum was responsible also for these quarrels ; 
 for in the early accounts we are told that losses were phil- 
 osophically accepted. Father Brebeuf tells of a party 
 
 45 Among the Delawares it required eight counts of five to win. History of the 
 Mission of theUnited Brethren among the Indians, etc., G. H.Loskiel. Translated 
 by C. I. Latrobe. Part I, Ch. vm, p. 106. 
 
 46 Charlevoix, Vol.m, p. 261. 47 Ibid, p. 262. 
 
 48 Loskiel (p. 106) saw a game between two Iroquois towns which lasted eight 
 days. Sacrifices for luck were offered by the sides each night. 
 
24 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 who had lost their leggings at one of these games and who 
 returned to their village in three feet of snow as cheerful 
 in appearance as if they had won. There seems to have 
 been no limit to which they would not go in their stakes 
 while under the excitement of the game. Clothing, wife, 
 family and sometimes the personal liberty of the player 
 himself rested in the hazard of the die . 49 
 
 The women often played the game by themselves, though 
 apparently with less formality than characterized the great 
 matches. The latter frequently assumed the same local 
 characteristics that we have seen in the game of lacrosse, 
 and we hear of village being pitted against village as a 
 frequent feature of the game . 50 
 
 Morgan 51 describes a game played by the Iroquois 
 with buttons or dice made of elk-horn, rounded and pol- 
 ished and blackened on one side. The players spread a 
 blanket on the ground ; and the dice were tossed with the 
 hand in the air and permitted to fall on the blanket. The 
 counts were determined as in the game of platter by the 
 color of the sides of the dice which were exposed when they 
 settled. The number of the dice was eight. 
 
 In Perrot’s 52 description of the game of platter he al- 
 ludes to a game, played with eight dice, on a blanket in 
 precisely this way, but he adds that it was practised by 
 women and girls. La Potherie 53 says that the women 
 sometimes play at platter, but ordinarily they cast the 
 fruit stones with the hand as one throws dice. 
 
 Under the name of "hubbub” this game has also been 
 
 40 Charlevoix, Vol. ill, p. 261. Le Grand Voyage dll Pays des Hurons, par Ga- 
 briel Sagard Theodat, Paris, 1632, Nonvelle Edition, Paris, 1865, p. 85; Relations 
 de J^suites, Relation de la Nouvelle France, en l’Anu^e 1639, pp. 95-96; Lafltau, 
 Vol. II, p. 341. 
 
 60 Perrot, p. 43; Uistoire du Canada, par F. X. Garneau, Vol. i, p. 115. 
 
 01 League of the Iroquois, p. 302. Perrot, p. 50. 63 j, a Potherie, Vol. hi, p. 23. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 25 
 
 described by observers among the Abenakis. Ogilby 54 
 says : " Hubbub is five small Bones in a small Tray ; the 
 Bones be like a Die, but something flatter, black on the 
 one side and white on the other, which they place on 
 the Ground, against which violently thumping the Platter, 
 the Bones mount, changing Colour with the windy whisking 
 of their Hands to and fro ; which action in' that sport they 
 much use, smiting themselves on the Breasts and Thighs, 
 crying out Hub Hub Hub ; they may be heard playing at 
 this game a quarter of a mile off. The Bones being all 
 black or white make a double Game ; if three of one 
 colour, and two of another, then they afford but a single 
 game ; four of a colour and one differing is nothing. So 
 long as the Man wins he keeps the Tray, but if he lose 
 the next Man takes it.” 
 
 There is but little said about this game in the south by 
 writers. It evidently had no such hold there as among 
 the Hurons and the tribes along the Lakes. Lawson 55 saw 
 it played in North Carolina with persimmon stones as 
 dice. While this fixes the fact that the game had a home 
 among the southern Indians, the way in which it has been 
 slighted by the majority of writers who treat of that sec- 
 tion shows that it was not a favorite game there. 
 
 To what shall we ascribe this ? Its hold upon the north- 
 ern Indians shows that it was peculiarly adapted to the 
 temperament of the natives, and we should naturally ex- 
 pect to find it as much in use among the tribes of the 
 south as with those of the north. An explanation for 
 this may possibly be found in the difference of the cli- 
 mate. The game was especially adapted for the winter, 
 and while its practice was evidently not exclusively con- 
 
 64 America, being an Accurate Description of the New World, etc. Collected 
 and Translated by John Ogilby. London, 1670. Book n, Ch. n, p. 155. 
 
 56 History of North Carolina by John Lawson, London, 1718, p. 176. 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 fined to that season, it is possible that its greater hold upon 
 the affections of the Indians of the north arose from their 
 being obliged to resort to in-door amusements during the 
 protracted winters in that region. From this necessity 
 the southern Indians being in a measure exempt, they 
 continued their out-door games as usual and never became 
 so thoroughly infatuated with this game. 
 
 Informal contests were often held between players, in 
 which the use of the bowl or platter was dispensed with. 
 The dice were held in the hand and then tossed in the air. 
 They were allowed to fall upon some prepared surface, 
 generally a deerskin spread for the purpose. The same 
 rules as to the color of the surfaces of the dice when they 
 settled in their places governed the count. This form of 
 the game is sometimes described as a separate game. 
 Boucher 56 calls it Paquessen , 57 The women of Oregon 
 played it with marked beaver teeth . 58 Among the Twa- 
 nas it was played with beaver or muskrat teeth . 69 Pow- 
 ers 60 says that among the Nishinams, a tribe living on the 
 slopes of the Sierra Nevada between the Yuba and Cos- 
 um nes rivers, " a game of dice is played by men or women, 
 two, three or four together. The dice, four in number, 
 consist of two acorns split lengthwise into halves, with the 
 outsides scraped and painted red or black. They are shak- 
 en in the hand and thrown into a wide flat basket, woven 
 in ornamental patterns. One paint and three whites, or 
 
 6«True and Genuine Description of New France, etc., by Pierre Boucher, Paris, 
 1644. Translated under title “Canada in the Seventeenth Century,” Montreal, 1883, 
 p. 57. 
 
 57 Played by women and girls. Sagard Theodat, Histoire du Canada, Vol. i, p. 
 244. 
 
 “Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. I, p. 206, George Gibbs; 
 H. H. Bancroft’s Native Races, Vol. I, p. 244; The Northwest Coast by James 
 G. Swan, p. 158. 
 
 69 Bulletin, U. S. Geological Survey, Vol. in, No. 1, April 5, 1877. Rev. M. Eels. 
 6° Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. ill, p. 332. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 27 
 
 vice versa, score nothing ; two of each score one ; four alike 
 score four. The thrower keeps on throwing until he makes 
 a blank throw, when another takes the dice. When all 
 the players have stood their turn, the one who has scored 
 the most takes the stakes.” 
 
 The women of the Yokuts , 61 a Californian tribe which 
 lived in the San Joaquin valley near Tulare Lake, had a 
 similar game. Each die was half a large acorn or walnut 
 shell filled with pitch and powdered charcoal and inlaid 
 with bits of bright colored abaloni shell. Four squaws 
 played and a fifth kept tally with fifteen sticks. There 
 were eight dice and they scooped them up with their hands 
 and dashed them into the basket, counting one when two 
 or five flat surfaces turned up. 
 
 Schoolcraft 62 says "one of the principal amusements of 
 a sedentary character is that of various games, success in 
 which depends on luck in numbers. These games, to which 
 both the prairie and forest tribes are addicted, assume the 
 fascination and intensity of gambling ; and the most valued 
 articles are often staked upon the luck of a throw. For 
 this purpose the prairie tribes commonly use the stones of 
 the wild plum or some analogous fruit, upon which various 
 devices indicating their arithmetical value are burned in, 
 or engraved and colored, so as at a glance to reveal the 
 character of the pieces.” Among the Dacota tribes this is 
 known by a term which is translated the "game of plum 
 stones.” He gives illustrations of the devices on five sets 
 of stones, numbering eight each. "To play this game a 
 little orifice is made in the ground and a skin put in it ; 
 olten it is also played on a robe .” 63 The women and the 
 young men play this game. The bowl is lifted with one 
 
 B1 Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. Ill, p. 377. 
 
 02 Schoolcraft’s Indian Tribes, Vol. II, pp. 71, 72. 
 
 63 Domenech, Vol. n, p. 191; First Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology, 
 Smithsonian, 1881, p. 195. 
 
28 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 hand and rudely pushed down to its place. The plum 
 stones fly over several times. The stake is first put up by 
 all who wish to play. A dozen can play at once if desirable. 
 
 Schoolcraft 64 describes still another form of the game 
 which he found among the Chippewas, in which thirteen 
 pieces or dice were used. Nine of them were of bone and 
 were fashioned in figures typifying fish, serpents, etc. 
 One side of each was painted red and had dots burned in 
 with a hot iron. The brass pieces were circular having one 
 side convex and the other concave. The convex side 
 was bright, the concave dark or dull. The red pieces were 
 the winning pieces and each had an arithmetical value. 
 Any number of players might play. A wooden bowl, 
 curiously carved and ornamented, was used. This form 
 of the game may have been modified by contact with the 
 whites. It seems to be the most complex 65 form in which 
 the game appears. The fact still remains however, that 
 in some form or other we find the game in use across the 
 entire breadth of the continent . 66 
 
 STRAW OR INDIAN CARDS. 
 
 The third game mentioned by Father Brebeuf was that 
 which was called straw. We have seen that the first of 
 these games called for strength, agility and endurance. It 
 was as free from elements of chance as any human contest 
 
 M Vol. n, p. 72. ' 
 
 « 6 See also a simpler form of the game described by Philander Prescott among 
 the Dacotas.— Schoolcraft, Vol. iv, p. 64. The tendency of the modern Indians to 
 elaborate the game maybe traced in the description of “Plumstone shooting” 
 given in “ Omaha Sociology” by Rev. J. Owen Dorsey. Third Annual Report of 
 the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Wash- 
 ington, 1884, p. 335. 
 
 66 Col. James Smith describes the game among the Wyandots. An Account ot 
 the Remarkable Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Col. James Smith, during 
 his Captivity with the Indians in the Years 1755-1759. Cincinnati, 1870, p. 46. 
 Tanner also describes it. lie calls it Leg-ga-sah or dice. Tanner’s Narrative, New 
 York, 1830, p. 114. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 29 
 
 can be. The victory belonged to the side which counted 
 amongst its numbers those players who were the fleetest 
 runners, the most skilful throwers and the most adroit dodg- 
 ers. The second was purely a game of chance. If hon- 
 estly played no other element entered into its composition. 
 The third which we are now about to consider was much 
 more complicated in its rules than either of the others. It 
 closely resembled in some respects several of our modern 
 gambling games. The French found it very difficult to 
 comprehend and hence the accounts of it which they have 
 given are often confused and perplexing. Boucher 67 says, 
 "Our French people have not yet been able to learn to 
 play it well ; it is full of spirit and these straws are to 
 the Indians what cards are to us.” Lafitau 68 after quoting 
 from Boucher says, "Baron de la Hontan also made out of 
 it a game purely of the mind and of calculation, in which 
 he who best knows how to add and subtract, to multiply 
 and divide with these straws will surely win. To do this, 
 use and practice are necessary, for these savages are noth- 
 ing less than good calculators.” 
 
 " Sieur Perrot, who was a celebrated traveller, and that 
 European whom the savages of New France have most 
 honored, left a description of this game in his manuscript 
 Memorial. I would gladly have inserted it here but it is 
 so obscure that it is nearly unintelligible*” Charlevoix ad- 
 mits that he could understand nothing of the game, ex- 
 cept as played by two persons in its simplest form and 
 adds that he was told that " there was as much of art as 
 of chance in the game and that the Indians are great cheats 
 at it .” 69 
 
 67 p. 57. «8Vol. II, p.351. 
 
 99 Charlevoix, Vol. in, p. 319; Father Tailhan who edited Perrot says he has 
 not been any more successful than his predecessors and the game of straws re- 
 mains to him an unsolved enigma. Perrot, Notes to Ch. x, p.^188. 
 
30 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 Where Lafitau and Charlevoix, aided by opportunities 
 to investigate the game itself, have failed, it would seem to 
 be useless for us to attempt. Perrot has indeed succeeded 
 in making his account hopelessly involved. There is 
 however much information to be derived from it and the 
 obscure points are after all unimportant unless one should 
 actually wish to reproduce the game in practice. In that 
 event there are many points connected with the counts 
 which would prove troublesome. 
 
 To play the game, a number of straws or reeds uniform 
 in size and of equal length were required. They were 
 generally from six to ten inches long. The number used 
 in the game was arbitrary. Lawson puts it at fifty-one. 
 Charlevoix at two hundred and one. The only essential 
 points were that the numbers should be odd and that there 
 should be enough of them so that when the pile was divid- 
 ed into two parts, a glance would not reveal which of the 
 two divisions contained the odd number of straws. In its 
 simplest form, the game consisted, in separating the heap 
 of straws into two parts, one of which each player took, 
 and he whose pile contained the odd number of straws 
 was the winner. Before the division was made the straws 
 were subjected to a manipulation, somewhat after the man- 
 ner of shuffling cards. They were then placed upon the 
 deer-skin or upon whatever other article was selected as a 
 surface on which to play. The player who was to make the 
 division into two heaps, with many contortions of the body 
 and throwing about of the arms, and with constant utter- 
 ances to propitiate his good luck, would make a division 
 of the straws with a pointed bone or some similar instru- 
 ment, himself taking one of the divisions while his adver- 
 sary took the other. They would then rapidly separate 
 the straws into parcels numbering ten each and determine 
 from the fractional remainders, who had the odd number. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 31 
 
 The speed with which this process of counting was car- 
 ried on was always a source of wonder to the lookers-on, 
 and the fact that the counting was done by tens is almost 
 invariably mentioned . Between two people betting simply 
 on the odd number no further rules were necessary. To 
 determine which had the heap containing the odd number, 
 there was no need to foot up the total number of tens. It 
 was to be settled by what was left over after the last pile 
 of complete tens was set aside. The number itself might be 
 either one, three, five, seven or nine. In the more compli- 
 cated form of the game, this led to giving different values 
 to these numbers, the nine being always supreme and the 
 one on which the highest bets were wagered. It was gen- 
 erally understood that the holder of this number swept the 
 board taking all bets on other numbers as well as those on 
 the nine. It was easy to bet beads against beads and skins 
 against skins, in a simple game of odd or even, but when 
 the element of different values for different combinations 
 was introduced, some medium of exchange was needed to 
 relieve the complications. Stones of fruit were employed 
 just as chips or counters are used in modern gambling 
 games, and a regular bank was practically instituted. 
 Each player took a certain number of these counters, as 
 the equivalent of the value of the merchandise which he 
 proposed to hazard on the game, whether it was a gun, a 
 blanket, or some other article. Here we have all the 
 machinery of a regular gambling game at cards, but the 
 resemblance does not stop here. The players put up their 
 bets precisely as they now do in a game of faro, selecting 
 their favorite number and fixing the amount, measured in 
 the standard of the game, which they wished to hazard. 
 " By the side of the straws which are on the ground are 
 found the ( grains ) counters,” says Perrot, " which the 
 players have bet on the game.” In another place, the 
 
32 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 method of indicating the bets is stated as follows : "he 
 (meaning apparently the one who has bet) is also obliged 
 to make two other heaps. In one he will place five, in the 
 other seven straws, with as many ( grains ) counters as he 
 pleases.” These phrases may fairly be interpreted to mean 
 that a record of the bets, somewhat of the same style as 
 that kept with counters upon a faro table, was constantly 
 before the players. Complicated rules determined when 
 the players won or lost ; when the bets were to be doubled 
 and when they were to abide the chance of another count. 
 The loser at the game, even after all that he had with him 
 was gone, was sometimes permitted to continue the game 
 on his promise to pay. If ill luck still pursued him the 
 winner could refuse him credit and decline to play for 
 stakes that he could not see. 
 
 The game often lasted for several days, one after an- 
 other of the sides relieving his comrades at the play until 
 one of the two sides had lost everything, it being, says 
 Perrot , 70 " a maxim of the savages not to quit play until 
 one side or the other had lost everything.” Those who 
 had bet at the game had the right to substitute any person 
 whom they pleased to play for them. "Should any dis- 
 pute arise on this point,” says Perrot, "between the 
 winners and the losers, the disputants backed by their re- 
 spective sides would probably come to blows, blood would 
 be shed and the whole thing would be very difficult to 
 settle.” Cheating often took place at this game. Its ex- 
 posure was considered praiseworthy and its practice de- 
 nounced. If doubts were expressed as to the accuracy of 
 a count, the matter was peacefully adjusted by a re-count 
 by two of the spectators. 
 
 " This game of straw,” says Perrot, from whose ac- 
 
 7 ° p. 49. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 33 
 
 count we have made the foregoing digest, " is ordinarily 
 held in the cabins of the chiefs, which are large, and are, 
 so to speak, the Academy of the Savages.” He concludes 
 his account with the statement that the women never play 
 it . 71 The authority on this game whom Ogilby quotes 
 slides over the difficulties of the description with the state- 
 ment that " many other whimsies be in this game which 
 would be too long to commit to paper.” Abbe Ferland 72 
 epitomizes the results of his investigation of this game 
 as follows : " Memory, calculation and quickness of eye- 
 sight were necessary for success.” 
 
 Like the game of dice or platter it was essentially a 
 Douse game, and like platter it is rarely mentioned by 
 writers who describe the habits of Indians in the south. 
 Lawson describes it, but in slightly modified form, as fol- 
 lows : " Indian Cards. Their chiefest game is a sort of 
 Arithmetick, which is managed by a parcel of small split 
 reeds, the thickness of a small Bent; these are made very 
 nicely, so that they part, and are tractable in their hands. 
 They are fifty-one in number, their length about seven 
 inches ; when they play, they throw part of them to their 
 antagonist ; the art is, to discover, upon sight, how many 
 you have, and what you throw to him that plays with you. 
 Some are so expert at their numbers, that they will tell 
 ten times together, what they throw out of their hands. 
 Although the whole play is carried on with the quickest 
 motion it is possible to use, yet some are so expert at this 
 Game, as to win great Indian Estates by this Play. A 
 good sett of these reeds, fit to play withal are valued and 
 sold for a dressed doe-skin.” 
 
 A. W. Chase 73 speaks of " native games of cards 
 
 71 See also Shea’s Hennepin, p. 300. 72 Vol. I, p. 134. 
 
 7S Overland Monthly, Vol. ii, p. 433. Dorsey found a survival of the game iu 
 use among the Omahas. He called it “stick counting.” Third Annual Report, 
 Bureau of Ethnology, p. 338. 
 
 5 
 
34 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 among the Coquelles and Makneatanas, the pasteboards 
 being bundles of sticks.” He furnishes no description of 
 the games, but uses the same phrase which was applied by 
 Lawson in North Carolina and by Boucher in Canada. 
 
 Frank H. Cushing 74 speaks of a game of " Cane-cards ” 
 among the Zuni which he says " would grace the most 
 civilized society with a refined source of amusement.” He 
 was not able fully to comprehend it. 
 
 In the list of games, there is none of which we have 
 any detailed account, which compares with straws as 
 played by the northern tribes, in elaborateness of con- 
 struction. The unfortunate confusion which prevails 
 throughout Perrot s description ot the method of counting, 
 and the way in which the point was shirked by all other 
 writers on the subject, prevents any attempt at analysis. 
 So tar as we can see, the rules were arbitrary and not 
 based upon any calculations of the laws of chance. If 
 some other detailed account of the game should be discov- 
 ered it would be interesting to follow up this question 
 and ascertain how far the different combinations which 
 affected the counts were based upon a theory of probabili- 
 ties and how far they were arbitrary. 
 
 It will of course be noticed that the game described by 
 Lawson was relieved from much of this complication. 
 The dexterity required to make a throw of such a nature 
 that the player could tell exactly the number of reeds 
 with which he had parted, was of course remarkable and 
 naturally called forth expressions of surprise. But there 
 were apparently no other combinations resting upon the 
 throw than the simple guess at the number thrown. Trav- 
 ellers in California have described the game in still sim- 
 pler form in which we see hints of the more complex 
 
 74 The Century, Vol. xxvi, p. 38. My Adventures in Zuni. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 35 
 
 game. Here the " sticks” were thrown in the air and an 
 immediate guess was made whether the number thrown 
 was odd or even. An umpire kept the account with 
 other sticks and on this count the bets were adjusted. 75 
 
 Wherever we find it and whatever the form in use, 
 whether simple or complicated, like games of lacrosse and 
 platter the occasion of its play was but an excuse for in- 
 dulgence in the inveterate spirit of gambling which every- 
 where prevailed. 
 
 CHUNKEE Otf HOOP AND POLE. 
 
 Among the Indians at the south, observers noted and 
 described a game of great antiquity, of which we have no 
 record during historical times among those of the north, 
 unless we should classify the game of javelin described by 
 Morgan 76 as a modified form of the same game. The gen- 
 eral name by which this game was known was chunkee. 
 When Iberville arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi he 
 despatched a party to explore the river. The officer who 
 kept the "Journal de la fregate, le Marin” was one of that 
 party and he recorded the fact that the Bayagoulas and 
 Mougoulachas passed the greater part of their time in 
 playing in this place with great sticks which they throw 
 after a little stone, which is nearly round and like a bul- 
 let. 77 Father Gravier descended the river in 1700 and at 
 the village of Houmas he saw a "fine level square where 
 from morning to night there are young men who exercise 
 
 76 Kotzebue, A Voyage of Discovery, etc. London, 1821. Vol. i, p. 282 and Vol. 
 m, p. 44, note. W. H. Emory, U. S. and Mexican Boundary Survey, Vol. i, p. Ill, 
 says : '* The Yumas played a game with sticks like jackstraws.” Stanley, Smith- 
 sonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. ir, p.55, gives among his “Portraits of 
 North American Indians,” a picture of a game which he describes as “ played ex- 
 clusively by women. They hold in their hands twelve sticks about six inches in 
 length which they drop upon a rock. The sticks that fall across each other are 
 counted lor game.” 
 
 76 League of the Iroquois, p. .300. 77 Margry, Deoouvertes, etc., Vol. 4, p. 201. 
 
36 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 themselves in running after a flat stone which they throw 
 in the air from one end of the square to the other, and 
 which they try to have fall on two cylinders that they roll 
 where they think the stone will fall .” 78 Adair gives the 
 following description of the same game : "The warriors 
 have another favorite game, called ' chungke\ which, with 
 propriety of language may be called 'Running hard labour.’ 
 They have near their state house 79 a square piece of ground 
 well cleaned, and fine sand is carefully strewed over it, 
 when requisite, to promote a swifter motion to what they 
 throw along the surface. Only one or two on a side play 
 at this ancient game. They have a stone about two fingers 
 broad at the edge and two spans round ; each party has a 
 pole of about eight feet long, smooth, and tapering at each 
 end, the points flat. They set offabreast of each other at 
 six yards from the end of the playground ; then one of 
 them hurls the stone on its edge, in as direct a line as he 
 can, a considerable distance toward the middle of the other 
 end of the square. When they have run a few yards, each 
 darts his pole anointed with bears’ oil, with a proper force, 
 as near as he can guess in proportion to the motion of the 
 stone, that the end may lie close to the stone. When this 
 is the case, the person counts two of the game, and, in pro- 
 portion to the nearness of the poles to the mark, one is 
 counted, unless by measuring, both are found to be at an 
 equal distance from the stone. In this manner, the play- 
 ers will keep running most part of the day, at half speed, 
 under the violent heat of the sun, staking their silver or- 
 naments, their nose-, finger- and ear-rings ; their breast-, 
 arm- and wrist-plates, and even all their wearing apparel, 
 except that which barely covers their middle. All the 
 
 78 Shea’s Early Voyages, Albany, 1861, p. 143. 
 
 79 Consult E. G. Squier. — Aboriginal Monuments of N. Y., Smithsonian Contri- 
 butions to Knowledge, Vol. II, pp. 135-6 and note p. 136. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 37 
 
 American Indians are much addicted to this game, which 
 to us appears to be a task of stupid drudgery ; it seems, 
 however, to be of early origin, when their forefathers used 
 diversions as simple as their manners. The hurling stones 
 they use at present were from time immemorial rubbed 
 smooth on the rocks and with prodigious labor ; and they 
 are kept with the strictest religious care, from one genera- 
 tion to another, and are exempted from being buried with 
 the dead. They belong to the town where they are 
 used, and are carefully preserved .” 80 
 
 Lieut. Timberlake 81 describes the game as he saw it 
 played among the Cherokees where it was known by the 
 name of " Nettecawaw.” "Each player has a pole about 
 ten feet long, with several marks or divisions. One of 
 them bowls a round stone with one flat side, and the other 
 convex, on which the players all dart their poles after it, 
 and the nearest counts according to the vicinity of the bowl 
 to the marks on his pole. ” 
 
 Romans saw it among the Choctaws. He says, "The 
 manner of playing the game is thus : they make an alley 
 of about two hundred feet in length, where a very smooth 
 clayey ground is laid, which when dry is very hard : they 
 play two together having each a straight pole about fifteen 
 feet long ; one holds a stone which is in the shape of a 
 truck, which he throws before him over this alley, and the 
 instant of its departure, they set off and run ; in running 
 they cast their poles after the stone ; he that did not throw 
 it endeavors to hit it ; the other strives to strike the pole 
 of his antagonist in its flight so as to prevent the pole of 
 his opponent hitting the stone. If the first should strike 
 the stone he counts one for it, and if the other by the 
 
 80 See also Historical Collections, Louisiana and Florida. B. F. French [Vol. 
 II.], second series, p. 74. New York, 1875. 
 
 8t Mcmoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake, etc., London, 1765, p. 77. 
 
38 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 dexterity of his cast should prevent the pole of his oppo- 
 nent hitting the stone, he counts one, but should both miss 
 their aim the throw is renewed.” 
 
 Le Page du Pratz 82 describes the game as practised 
 among the Natchez. He calls it " Le Jeu de la Perche which 
 would be better named de la crossed Dumont who was 
 stationed at Natchez and also on the Yazoo, describes the 
 game and speaks of it as "La Crosse .” 83 
 
 Adair is correct when he speaks of the antiquity of this 
 game. When he dwells upon the fact that these stones are 
 handed down from generation to generation, as the prop- 
 erty of the village, he brings these tribes close to the 
 mound dwellers. Squier , 84 speaking of discoidal stones, 
 found in the mounds, sa} T s, "It is known that among the 
 Indian tribes of the Ohio and along the Gulf, such stones 
 were in common use in certain favorite games.” Lucien 
 Carr 85 describes and pictures a chunkee stone from Ely 
 Mound, Ya. Lewis and Clarke 86 describe the game as 
 played among the Mandans. This tribe had a wooden 
 platform prepared on the ground between two of their 
 lodges. Along this platform the stone ring was rolled and 
 the sticks were slid along the floor in pursuit of it. Catlin 87 
 describes the game as played by the same tribe. They 
 had a carefully prepared pavement of clay on which they 
 played. The "Tchunkee” sticks were marked with bits of 
 leather and the counts of the game were affected by the 
 position of the leather on or near which the ring lodged. 
 
 82 Histoire de la Louisiane, Paris, 1758, Vol. ill, p. 2. 
 
 88 Memoires Ilistoriques sur la Louisiane, Paris, 1753, Vol. I, p. 202. 
 
 84 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 223. 
 
 86 10th Annual Report Peabody Museum, p. 93. See also Schoolcraft’s Indian 
 tribes, Vol. i, p. 83. 
 
 80 Lewis and Clarke’s Expedition, Phila., 1814, Vol. I, p. 143. 
 
 87 Vol. i, p. 132 et seq. Dorsey describes two forms of the game in use among 
 the Omahas : “shooting at the rolling wheel ’’and “stick and ring” Third An- 
 nual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 335-336. cf. Travels in the Interior of 
 America, in the years 1809, 1810 and 1811, by John Bradbury, p. 126. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 39 
 
 The Mojrtves are accustomed to play a similar game 
 which has been described under the name " Hoop and 
 Pole ”. 88 A similar game was played by the Navajoes . 89 
 
 The Yumas played a game with two poles fifteen feet 
 long and a ring a few inches in diameter . 90 Kane 91 says 
 that the Clnialpays at Fort Colville on the Columbia "have 
 a game which they call ' Alkollock ,’ which requires consid- 
 erable skill. A smooth, level piece of ground is chosen, 
 and a slight barrier of a couple of sticks placed length- 
 wise is laid at each end of the chosen spot, being Irom 
 forty to fifty feet apart and only a few inches high. The 
 two players, stripped naked, are armed with a very slight 
 spear, about three feet long, and finely pointed with bone ; 
 one of them takes a ring made of bone or some heavy 
 wood and wound with cord. The ring is about three 
 inches in diameter, on the inner circumference of which 
 are fastened six beads of different colors, at equal dis- 
 tances, to each of which a separate value is attached. 
 The ring is then rolled along the ground to one of the 
 barriers and is followed at the distance of two or three 
 yards by the players, and as the ring strikes the barrier 
 and is tailing on its side, the spears are thrown, so that 
 the ring may fall, on them. If any one of the spears 
 should be covered by the ring, the owner counts according 
 to the colored bead on it. But it generally happens from 
 the dexterity of the players that the ring covers both 
 spears and each counts according to the color of the beads 
 above his spear. They then play towards the other 
 
 88 Lieut. A. W. Whipple in Pac. R. R. Rep., Vol. in, p. 114 ; Harper’s Mag., Vol. 
 XVII, p.463; Domenech, Vol. II, p. 197; H. H. Bancroft’s Native Races, Vol. I, p. 
 393, p. 517 and note 133. The Martial Experiences of the California Volunteers by 
 Edward Carlsen, Overland, Vol vil, No. 41, 2nd Series, p. 494. 
 
 89 Major E. A. Backus in Schoolcraft, Vol. iv, p. 214. 
 
 90 W. II. Emory, U. S. and Mexican Boundary Survey, Vol. I, p. 111. 
 
 91 Kane’s Wanderings, p. 310; II. H. Bancrolt’s Native Races, Vol. i, p. 280. 
 
40 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 barrier, and so on until one party has obtained the number 
 agreed upon for the game.” 
 
 In his "Life among the Apaches ,” 92 Colonel Cremony 
 describes the hoop and pole game as pla}’ed by the Ap- 
 aches. With them the pole is marked with divisions 
 throughout its whole length and these divisions are stained 
 different colors. The object of the game is to make the 
 hoop fall upon the pole as near the butt as possible, grad- 
 uated values being applied to the different divisions of the 
 pole. The women are not permitted to approach within 
 a hundred yards while the game is going on . 93 
 
 Those who have described this game in the various 
 forms in which it has been presented dwell upon the fact 
 that it taxed the strength, activity and skill of the play- 
 ers. In this respect it rivalled lacrosse. In geographi- 
 cal range the territory in which it was domesticated was 
 nearly the same. 
 
 There are many, doubtless, who would decline to rec- 
 ognize the discoidal stones of the mounds as chunkee 
 stones, but it can not be denied that the " neltecciwaw” of 
 the Oherokees 94 , the " hoop and pole” of the Mojaves 
 and Apaches 95 , the second form of "spear and ring” de- 
 scribed by Domenech , 96 the " alkollock” of the Chualpays 97 
 and the chunkee of Romans and Adair are the same 
 game. 
 
 82 Life among the Apaches, by John C. Cremony, p. 302. 
 
 03 The Hawaiians were accustomed to hurl a piece of hard lava along narrow 
 trenches prepared for the purpose. The stone which was called Maika closely 
 resembled a chunkee stone. It is described as being in the shape of a small 
 wheel or roller, three inches in diameter and an inch and a half thick, very smooth 
 and highly polished. This game appears to have been limited to a contest of 
 skill in rolling or hurling the stone itself. The additional interest which was 
 given by hurling the spears at it while in motion was wanting. Narrative of the 
 U. S. Exploring Expedition by Charles Wilkes, London, 1845, Vol. iv, p. 55. 
 
 84 Timberlake, p. 77. 
 
 Whipple, Pac. R. R. Rep., Vol. ill, p. 114; Cremony, p. 302; Harper’s Mag. 
 Vol. xvii, p. 463. 
 
 86 Domenech, Vol. n, p. 197. 
 
 97 Kane’s Wanderings, p. 310. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 41 
 
 The change from the discoidal stone to the ring; the 
 different materials of which the ring is made, whether of 
 stone , 98 of bone , 99 of wood , 100 or of cord ; 101 whether wound 
 with cord 102 or plain ; the different lengths of the spears 
 varying from three feet 1 " to ten feet 104 and even reaching 
 fifteen feet in length among the Mojaves ; 105 the different 
 markings of the spear 106 aud the ring ; 107 the different ways 
 of preparing the ground, whether tamping with clay , 108 or 
 flooring with timber , 109 or simply removing the vegetation , 110 
 — all these minor differences are of little consequence. 
 The striking fact remains that this great number of tribes, 
 so widely separated, all played a game in which the prin- 
 cipal requirements were, that a small circular disk should 
 be rolled rapidly along a prepared surface and that pre- 
 pared wooden implements, similar to spears, should be 
 launched at the disk while in motion or just at the time 
 when it stopped. Like lacrosse, it was made use of as 
 an opportunity for gambling, but owing to the restriction 
 of the ground on which it could be played, the number of 
 players were limited, and to that extent the interest in the 
 contests and the excitement attendant upon them were 
 proportionally reduced. 
 
 OTHER ATHLETIC GAMES. 
 
 In addition to the games of lacrosse, platter or dice, 
 straws and chunkee, there were other games, some of an 
 athletic nature, some purely of chance, which observers 
 have described, some of which are mentioned only in 
 
 98 Lewis and Clarke, Vol. I, p. 143; Catlin, Vol. I, p. 132. 
 
 99 Kane’s Wanderings, p. 310. 100 Cremony, p. 302. 
 
 ioi Whipple, Pac. R. R. Rep., Vol. in, p. 114. 102 Kane’s Wanderings, p. 310. 
 
 103 Ibid. 104 Timberlake, p. 77; Cremony, p. 302. 
 i°o Whipple, Pac. R. R. Rep., Vol. ill, p.114. 
 
 106 Cremony, p.302; Domenech, Vol. II, p. 197; Timberlake, p. 77. 
 
 107 Kane’s Wanderings, p. 310. 108 Catlin, Vol. I, p. 132. 
 
 109 Lewis and Clarke, Vol. i, p. 143. 110 Domenech, Vol. n, p. 197. 
 
 6 
 
42 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 limited areas, while others, like the games above men- 
 tioned, were played by Indians scattered over a wide ter- 
 ritory and apparently having but little in common. Some 
 of these games were but modified forms of those which 
 have been already described. Such, for instance, is a game 
 of ball which is described by Lafitau 111 and by Charle- 
 voix . 112 This closely resembled lacrosse in its general 
 methods of play, but as no rackets were used, it was less 
 dangerous and less exciting. Goals were erected at each 
 end of the field, separated by five hundred paces accord- 
 ing to Lafitau. The players were divided into sides. 
 The ball was tossed into the air in the centre of the field. 
 When it came down the players of each side strove to 
 catch it. He who was successful ran in the direction of 
 the goal which he wished to reach. The players of the 
 opposide side pursued him and did what they could to 
 prevent him from accomplishing his object. When it 
 was evident that the runner could gain no more ground, he 
 would pass the ball, if possible, to some player upon the 
 same side and his success in accomplishing this was de- 
 pendent largely upon his skill. The game is probably 
 not so old as lacrosse, for the ball is described as beinsr 
 larger and softer than the one used in lacrosse, thus indi- 
 cating that it belonged to the period when the stuffed 
 deer-skin ball was used in that game. 
 
 Both Dumont and Le Page du Pratz describe this 
 game with this difference , 113 that the ball, according to their 
 descriptions, was incessantly tossed in the air. Romans 
 says that this game was played among the women ; and 
 Lafitau, who describes it separately, adds that in this form 
 it was only played by girls. He also says that the Abena- 
 kis indulged in a similar game, using an inflated bladder 
 
 111 Lafitau, Vol. n, p. 353. 112 Charlevoix, Vol. ill, p. 319. 
 
 113 Dumont, Vol. i, p. 201 ; LePage, Vol. i, p. 378. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 43 
 
 for a ball ; and that the Florida Indians fixed a willow 
 cage upon a pole in such a way that it could revolve and 
 tried to hit it with a ball so as to make it turn several 
 times . 114 
 
 Joutel in his historical journal describes a curious game 
 as follows : " Taking a short stick, very smooth and 
 greased that it may be the harder to hold it fast, one of 
 the elders throws it as far as he can. The young men 
 run after it, suatch it from each other, and at last, he who 
 remains possessed of it has the first lot .” 115 
 
 Foot-ball is found at the north. Ogilby 116 says : " Their 
 goals are a mile long placed on the sands, which are as 
 even as a board ; their ball is no bigger than a hand ball, 
 which sometimes they mount in the air with their naked 
 feet, sometimes it is swayed by the multitude, sometimes 
 also it is two days before they get a goal, then they mark 
 the ground they win, and begin there the next day. Before 
 they come to this sport they paint themselves, even as 
 when they go to war.” At the south it was " likewise 
 a favorite manly diversion with them .” 117 
 
 Certain forms of ball-play which were neither lacrosse 
 nor chunkee, but which resembled these games were found 
 in different localities. Such for instance is the game which 
 Catlin 118 saw played by the Sioux women. Two balls were 
 connected with a string a foot and a half long. Each woman 
 was armed with a stick. They were divided into equal sides. 
 Goals were erected and the play was in some respects like 
 lacrosse. Stakes were wagered on the game. This game 
 is also described by Domenech , 119 who says the women 
 wore a special costume which left the limbs free and that 
 
 11 4 Lafitau, Vol. II, p. 358. 
 
 115 French’s Historical Collections of Louisiana, Vol. 1 , p. 188; Sanford's His- 
 tory of the United States before the Revolution, p. clxxxii. 
 
 116 Ogilby, Book 11 , Chap. 11 , p. 156. See also Smith’s Narrative, p. 77. 
 
 Bartram, p. 509. 178 Vol. 11 , p. 146. 119 Vol.ii, p. 196. 
 
44 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 the game was "unbecoming and indecent.” Powers 120 
 found a game among the Nishinams, on the western slope 
 of the Sierra Nevada, not far from Sacramento, which in 
 some respects also resembled lacrosse. He says " The 
 ' Ti'-kel 9 is the only really robust and athletic game they 
 use, and is played by a large company of men and boys. 
 The piece 121 is made of raw-hide or nowadays of strong 
 cloth, and is shaped like a small dumb-bell. It is laid in 
 the centre of a wide, level space of ground, in a furrow, 
 hollowed out a few inches in depth. Two parallel lines 
 are drawn equidistant from it, a few paces apart, and 
 along these lines the opposing parties, equal in strength, 
 range themselves. Each player is equipped with a slight, 
 strong staff, from four to six feet long. The two cham- 
 pions of the party take their stations on opposite sides of 
 the piece, which is thrown into the air, caught on the staff 
 of one of the others, and hurled by him in the direction 
 of his antagonist’s goal. With this send-off there ensues 
 a wild chase and a hustle, pell-mell, higgledy-piggledy, 
 each party striving to bowl the piece over the other’s goal. 
 These goals are several hundred yards apart. 
 
 In an article in the Overland Monthly, 122 A. W. Chase 
 describes a game in vogue among the Oregon Indians 
 which he says was identical with hockey, as follows : "Sides 
 being chosen, each endeavors to drive a hard ball of pine 
 wood around a stake and in different directions ; stripped to 
 the buff, they display great activity and strength, whack- 
 ing away at each other’s shins, if they are in the way, with 
 a refreshing disregard of bruises. The squaws assist in the 
 performance by beating drums and keeping up a monoto- 
 nous chant.” 
 
 110 Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. ill, p. 333. 
 
 121 The equivalent in the game, of the ball in lacrosse. 
 
 122 Vol. n,4>. 433. See also Smith’s Narrative, p. 77 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 45 
 
 In the first of the tw© games of " spear and ring,” de- 
 scribed by Domenech , 123 the players are divided into sides. 
 The stone ring, about three inches in diameter, is fixed 
 upright on the chosen ground, and players two at a time, 
 one from each side, endeavor to throw their spears through 
 the ring. The spears are marked along their length with 
 little shields or bits of leather, and the count is affected by 
 the number of these that pass through the ring. He also 
 mentions a game 124 among the Natchez in which the ring 
 was a " huge stone” and the spear a "stick of the shape of 
 a bat.” 
 
 If we classify Domenech’s first game of "spear and 
 ring ” among those which resemble chunkee, rather than 
 as a form of chunkee itself, we shall probably be com- 
 pelled to pursue the same course with Morgan’s game of 
 "javelin” to which we have already alluded . 125 In this 
 game the players divided into sides. Each player had an 
 agreed number of javelins. The ring, which was either 
 a hoop or made solid like a wheel by winding with splints, 
 was about eight inches in diameter. The players on one side 
 were arranged in a line and the hoop was rolled before 
 them. They hurled their javelins. The count of the game 
 was kept by a forfeiture of javelins. Such as hit the mark 
 were safe, but the javelins which did not hit were passed 
 to the players of the other side who then had an opportunity 
 to throw them at the hoop from the same spot. If these 
 players were successful the javelins were forfeited and laid 
 out of the play. If, however, they in turn failed the javelins 
 were returned to their original owners. The hoop was 
 then rolled by the other side and the process continued 
 until one of the sides had forfeited all their javelins. 
 
 Vol.II, pp. 197-8. 
 
 124 He does not give his authority for this game. He has evidently copied in 
 his book from other writers, but seldom indicates whether his descriptions are 
 based upon personal observation or quoted. 
 
 125 League of the Iroquois, p. 300. 
 
46 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 OTHER GAMES OF CHANCE. 
 
 There was diversity in the forms of the games of simple 
 chance as well as in the athletic games, and besides those 
 which have been already described, the Indians on the Pa- 
 cific Coast had a great variety of games, or forms of the same 
 game, in which, in addition to the element of chance in- 
 volved in determining the numbers or positions of certain 
 sticks or counters, there was also an opportunity for the 
 player who was manipulating them to deceive by dexter- 
 ous sleight of hand. The simplest form in which this is 
 found is guessing in which hand a small stone or bone is 
 held. It would hardly seem that this artless effort could 
 be transformed into an amusing and exciting game ; yet 
 it has attracted the attention of all travellers, and scarcely 
 any writer, who treats of the habits of the Pacific coast In- 
 dian, fails to give a full account of this simple game. 
 Lewis and Clarke , 126 when writing about the Indians near 
 the mouth of the Columbia, say : "The games are of two 
 kinds. In the first, one of the company assumes the office 
 of banker and plays against the rest. He takes a small 
 stone, about the size of a bean, which he shifts from one 
 hand to another with great dexterity, repeating at the 
 same time a song adapted to the game and which serves 
 to divert the attention of the company, till having agreed 
 on the stakes, he holds out his hands, and the antagonist 
 wins or loses as he succeeds or fails at guessing in which 
 hand the stone is. After the banker has lost his money 
 or whenever he is tired, the stone is transferred to another, 
 who in turn challenges the rest of the company . 127 In the 
 
 126 Lewis and Clarke, Vol. n, 140; and also n, 94. 
 
 127 See also, Adventures on the Columbia River, by Ross Cox, p. 158; The Ore- 
 gon Territory, by John Dunn, p. 93; Four Years in British Columbia, by Command- 
 er R. C. Mayne, p. 275; it was played by the Comanches in Texas with a bullet, 
 Robert S. Neighbors in Schoolcraft, Vol. II, p. 133; by the Twanas with one or 
 two bones, Bulletin U. S. Geol. Survey, Vol, ill, No. 1, p. 89, Rev. M. Eels. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 47 
 
 account given by George Gibbs 128 the count of the game 
 among the tribes of western Washington and northwest- 
 ern Oregon, was kept by means of sticks. Each side 
 took five or ten small sticks, one of which was passed to 
 the winner on each guess, and the game was ended when 
 the pile of one side was exhausted. According to him, 
 "The backers of the party manipulating keep up a con- 
 stant drumming with sticks on their paddles which lie 
 before them, singing an incantation to attract good fortune. ” 
 Powers describes another form into which the game devel- 
 oped among the Indians of central California. It is 
 "played with a bit of wood or a pebble which is shaken 
 in the hand, and then the hand closed upon it. The oppo- 
 nent guesses which finger (a thumb is a finger with them) 
 it is under and scores one if he hits, or the other scores 
 if he misses. They keep tally with eight counters .” 129 
 
 Schwatka, in his recent exploration of the Yukon found 
 this game among the Chilkats. It was called la-hell. Two 
 bones were used. One was the king and one the queen. 
 His packers gambled in guessing at the bones every after- 
 noon and evening after reaching camp . 130 
 
 The simplicity of the game was modified by the intro- 
 duction of similar articles in each hand, the question to be 
 decided being in which hand one of them having a speci- 
 fied mark should be found. Kane 131 thus describes such 
 a game among the Chinooks : "Their games are few. The 
 one most generally played amongst them consists in hold- 
 ing in each hand a small stick, the thickness of a goose 
 quill, and about an inch and one-half in length, one plain, 
 the other distinguished by a little thread wound round 
 
 128 Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. I, p. 206. 
 
 129 Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. hi, pp. 332-3. 
 
 130 Along Alaska’s Great River. By Frederic Schwatka, p. 71. 
 
 181 Kane’s Wanderings, p. 189. 
 
48 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 it, the opposite party being required to guess in which hand 
 the marked stick is to be found. A Chinook will play 
 at this simple game for days and nights together, until he 
 has gambled away everything he possesses, even to his 
 wife .” 132 
 
 Among the Utahs this form of the game was common : 
 "A row of players consisting of five or six or a dozen men 
 is arranged on either side of the tent facing each other. 
 Before each man is placed a bundle of small twigs or sticks 
 each six or eight inches in length and pointed at one end. 
 Every tete-a-tete couple is provided with two cylindrical 
 bone dice carefully fashioned and highly polished which 
 measure about two inches in length and half an inch in di- 
 ameter, one being white and the other black, or sometimes 
 ornamented with a black band.” At the rear, musicians 
 were seated who during the game beat upon rude drums . 133 
 In this game it will be noticed that the players paired off 
 and apparently each man played for himself. 
 
 Still another element is introduced in another form of 
 the game, which increases the opportunity afforded the one 
 who manipulates the bones for dexterity. This form of 
 the game is repeatedly alluded to by Powers. While relat- 
 ing the habits and customs of the Gualala, whose homes 
 were near Fort Boss, he describes what he calls the gam- 
 bling game of " wi and tep” and says that one description 
 with slight variations will answer for nearly all the tribes of 
 central and southern California. After describing the mak- 
 ing up of the pool of stakes, he adds : "They gamble with 
 four cylinders of bone about two inches long, two of which 
 are plain, and two marked with rings and strings tied round 
 the middle. The game is conducted by four old and ex- 
 
 133 See also, Overland, Vol. ix, p. 163, Powers; H. H. Bancroft’s Native Races, 
 Vol. i, p. 244; Clay balls are sometimes used, Ibid, Vol. I, p.353; The Northwest 
 Coast, James G. Swan, p. 158; Montanaas it is, Granville Stuart, p. 71. 
 
 183 Edwin R. Barker in the American Naturalist, June, 1877, Vol. xi, p. 551. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 49 
 
 perienced men, frequently grey heads, two for each party, 
 squatting on their knees on opposite sides of the fire. They 
 have before them a quantity of fine dry grass, and with 
 their hands in rapid and juggling motions before and be- 
 hind them, they roll up each piece of bone in a little ball 
 and the opposite party presently guess in which hand is 
 the marked bone. Generally only one guesses at a time, 
 which he does with the word Hep* (marked one) , and ' wi 9 
 (plain one). If he guesses right for both players, they 
 simply toss the bones over to him and his partner, and 
 nothing is scored on either side. If he guesses right for 
 one and wrong for the other, the one for whom he guessed 
 right is 'out’, but his partner rolls up the bones for an- 
 other trial, and the guesser forfeits to them one of his 
 twelve counters. If he guesses wrong for both, they still 
 keep on and he forfeits two counters. There are only 
 twelve counters and when they have been all won over to 
 one side or the other, the game is ended .” 134 Sometimes 
 the same game was played without going through the for- 
 mality of wrapping the pieces in grass, simply shaking 
 them in the hands as a preliminary for the guessing . 135 
 
 A slightly different method prevails among the Indians 
 of Washington and northwestern Oregon. Ten disks of 
 hard wood, each about the diameter of a Mexican dollar 
 and somewhat thicker, are used. "One of these is marked 
 and called the chief. A smooth mat is spread on the 
 ground, at the ends of which the opposing players are 
 seated, their friends on either side, who are provided with 
 the requisites for a noise as in the other case. The party 
 holding the disks has a bundle of the fibres of the cedar 
 
 m Powers in Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol.m, pp. 90-152; 
 189-332. 
 
 135 Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. in, 332; Alexander Itoss’s 
 Adventures, pp. 308, 309. 
 
 7 
 
50 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 bark, in which he envelops them, and after rolling them 
 about, tears the bundle into two parts, his opponent guess- 
 ing in which bundle the chief lies .” 136 The same game is 
 described by Kane, except that the counters, instead of be- 
 ing wrapped in one bundle which is afterward torn in two, 
 are originally wrapped in two bundles . 137 
 
 Still another complication of the guessing game was de- 
 scribed by Mayne . 138 Blankets were spread upon the ground 
 on which sawdust was spread about an inch thick. In 
 this was placed the counter, a piece of bone or iron about 
 the size of a half a crown, and one of the players shuffled 
 it about, the others in turn guessing where it was. 
 
 The game of "moccasin” was but a modification of this 
 game. As described by Philander Prescott three mocca- 
 sins were used in this game by the Dacotas. The bone or 
 stick was slipped from one to another of the moccasins 
 by the manipulators, and the others had to guess in which 
 moccasin it was to be found. Simple as this description 
 seems, the men would divide into sides, playing against 
 each other, and accompanying the game with singing . 139 
 
 Among the Zunis, the guessing game was exalted to the 
 nature of a sacred festival. Frank II . Cushing 140 gives the 
 following account of its practice. "One morning the two 
 chief priests of the bow climbed to the top of the houses, 
 and just at sunrise called out a 'prayer message’ from the 
 mount-environed gods. Eight players went into a kli- 
 wi-tain to fast, and four days later issued forth, bearing 
 four large wooden tubes, a ball of stone, and a bundle of 
 thirty-six counting straws. With great ceremony, many 
 
 ls s Contributions to North American Ethnology, Gibbs, Vol. I, p. 206. 
 
 137 Kane’s Wanderings, p. 189; Swan’s Northwest Coast, p. 157; Eels in Bulletin 
 U. S. G. Surv., Vol. in. No. 1. 
 
 138 Mayne’s British Columbia, p. 275. 
 
 739 Schoolcraft, Vol. iv, p. 64; Domenech, Vol. II, p. 192. 
 
 149 The Century, Vol. xxvi, p. 37. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 51 
 
 prayers and incantations, the tubes were deposited on two 
 mock mountains of sand, either side of the f grand plaza.’ 
 A crowd began to gather. Larger and noisier it grew, 
 until it became a surging, clamorous, black mass. Grad- 
 ually two piles of fabrics, — vessels, silver ornaments, neck- 
 laces, embroideries, and symbols representing horses, 
 cattle and sheep — grew to large proportions. Women 
 gathered on the roofs around, wildly stretching forth arti- 
 cles for betting, until one of the presiding priests called 
 out a brief message. The crowd became silent. A booth 
 was raised, under which two of the players retired ; and 
 when it was removed the four tubes were standing on the 
 mound of sand. A song and dance began. One by one 
 three of the four opposing players were summoned to 
 guess under which tube the ball was hidden. At each 
 guess the cries of the opposing party became deafening, 
 and the mock struggles approached the violence of com- 
 bat. The last guesser found the ball ; and as he victo- 
 riously carried the latter and the tubes across to his own 
 mound, his side scored ten. The process was repeated. 
 The second guesser found the ball ; his side scored fifteen 
 setting the others back five. The counts numbered one 
 hundred ; but so complicated were the winnings and los- 
 ings on both sides, with each guess of either, that hour 
 after hour the game went on, and night closed in. Fires 
 were built in the plaza, cigarettes were lighted, but still 
 the game continued. Noisier and noisier grew the dan- 
 cers ; more and more insulting and defiant their songs and 
 epithets to the opposing crowd, until they fairly gnashed 
 their teeth at one another, but no blows. Day dawned 
 upon the still uncertain contest ; nor was it until the sun 
 again touched the western horizon, that the hoarse, still 
 defiant voices died away, and the victorious party bore off 
 their ' mountains of gifts from the gods. ’ ” 
 
 J8RARY 
 
 JNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
52 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 The picturesque description of Cushing brings before 
 our eyes the guessing game in its highest form of de- 
 velopment. Among the tribes of the East, if it had a home 
 at all, it was practised in such an inobtrusive way as not 
 to attract the attention of writers who have described 
 their habits and customs. The nearest approach to it 
 which we can find is a guessing game described by Henne- 
 pin, as follows : "They take kernels of Indian corn or 
 something of the kind, then they put some in one hand, 
 and ask how many there are. The one who guesses wins.” 
 
 Mackenzie 141 fell in with some Indians near the Pacific 
 coast who travelled with him a short distance. They 
 carried with them the implements for gambling. Their 
 game was different from the guessing games which have 
 been heretofore described. "There were two players and 
 each had a bundle of about fifty small sticks neatly pol- 
 ished, of the size of a quill, and five inches long. A cer- 
 tain number of their sticks had red lines round them and 
 as many of these as one of the players might find con- 
 venient were curiously rolled up in dried grass, and ac- 
 cording to the judgment of his antagonist respecting 
 their number and marks he lost or won.” 
 
 The same game was seen at Queen Charlotte Islands by 
 Francis Poole . 142 He says there were in this game from 
 "forty to fifty round pins or pieces of wood, five inches 
 long by one-eighth of an inch thick, painted in black and 
 blue rings and beautifully polished.” These pins were 
 divided into two heaps under cover of bark fibre and the 
 opposite player guessed odd or even for one of the piles. 
 
 CONTESTS OF SKILL. 
 
 Lewis and Clarke 143 describe a game among the Ore- 
 gon Indians which can neither be called an athletic game 
 
 Alexander Mackenzie’s Voyages in 1789 and 1793. London, 1801, p. 311. 
 ns Queen Charlotte Islands, a narrative, etc., p. 325. “ 3 Vol. 11 , p. HO. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 53 
 
 nor a game of chance, but which seems to have been a 
 simple contest of skill. "Two pins are placed on the 
 floor, about the distance of a foot from each other, and a 
 small hole made behind them. The players then go about 
 ten feet from the hole, into which they try to roll a small 
 piece, resembling the men used at draughts ; if they 
 succeed in putting it into the hole, they win the stake ; if 
 the piece rolls between the pins, but does not go into the 
 hole, nothing is won or lost ; but the wager is wholly lost 
 if the chequer rolls outside the pins.” 
 
 Morgan 144 describes a winter contest of skill among the 
 Iroquois, which he calls snow-snake. The so-called 
 snakes were made of hickory. They were from five to 
 seven feet in length, a quarter of an inch in thickness, 
 tapering from an inch in width at the head to about half 
 an inch at the tail. The head was round, turned up 
 slightly and weighted with lead. This implement was 
 shot along the snow crust, by hand, with great speed, and 
 a point in the game was gained by the snake which ran the 
 greatest distance. When there were a number of players 
 divided into sides, if there were two, three or more 
 snakes of the same side which were in advance of the 
 snakes of the other side, all such counted. Such contests 
 usually took place between tribes and aroused a great 
 degree of spirit and the usual amount of betting. In sim- 
 pler form, Sagard Theodat describes this kind of amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 OTHER AMUSEMENTS OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN. 
 
 Under the name of " Fuseaux” La Potherie 145 describes 
 a similar winter game of the children. He further says 
 the women only played at platter or dice. The children 
 
 144 League of the Iroquois, p. 303. 
 
 146 Vol. in, p. 24. 
 
54 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 played at lacrosse, seldom at platter. We have seen that 
 the women in some parts of the country joined in the la- 
 crosse games. Sometimes they played it by themselves and 
 sometimes they played other ball games which closely re- 
 semble that game. Romans describes a woman’s game 
 in which they tossed up a ball which was to be caught 
 before it reached the ground ; but in the meantime the 
 one who tossed it had to pick up a small stick from the 
 ground. 
 
 The women of the Natchez 146 , according to Le Page du 
 Pratz, played with three pieces of cane, each eight or 
 nine inches long, flat on one side and convex on the other 
 with engravings on the convex side. Two were held in 
 the open palm of the left hand and the third was dropped 
 round side down upon the ends of the two, so that all 
 would fall to the ground. If two convex surfaces came 
 up the player won. He also says, and in this Romans 
 concurs, that the women were very reluctant to be seen 
 while playing. 
 
 Among the Natchez, the young girls played ball with 
 a deer-skin ball stuffed with Spanish moss. Other than 
 that they seemed to him to have no games . 147 The young 
 Choctaws, according to Romans, engaged in wrestling, run- 
 ning, heaving and lifting great weights and playing ball. 
 Hennepin says, "the children play with bows and with 
 two sticks, one large and one small. They hold the little 
 one in the left, and the larger one in the right hand, then 
 with the larger one they make the smaller one fly up in 
 the air, and another runs after it, and throws it at the one 
 who sprang it. They also make a ball of flags or corn 
 leaves, which they throw in the air and catch on the end 
 of a pointed stick.” 
 
 La Page du Pratz, Vol. hi, p. 2; Domenecli, Vol. n, p. 192. 
 147 Le Page du Pratz, Vol. in, p. 2. 
 
INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 55 
 
 Powers 148 describes a game among the children of the 
 Nishinams which consisted in tossing bunches of clover 
 from one to another, and another in which the boys placed 
 themselves upon three bases and tossed a ball across from 
 one to the other. Points were won as in base ball by run- 
 ning bases, if possible, without being put out by the one 
 who at the time had the ball. The Choctaw 149 boys made 
 use of a cane stalk, eight or nine feet in length, from 
 which the obstructions at the joints had been removed, 
 much as boys use what is called a putty blower. The Zuni 
 children are said to play checkers with fragments of pot- 
 tery on flat stones . 150 
 
 Running matches, swimming, wrestling, the simple 
 ball-games which are hinted at rather than described, 
 practice in archery and hurling the spear or javelin, fur- 
 nished the Indian youth with such amusements as could 
 be derived outside the contests in which his elders partic- 
 ipated. Most of these latter were so simple as to be 
 easily understood by the very young, and we can readily 
 comprehend how deeply the vice of gambling must have 
 been instilled in their minds, when they saw it inaugu- 
 rated with such solemn ceremonials and participated in 
 with such furor by their elders. 
 
 Our information concerning the habits of the Indians 
 comes from a variety of sources. Some of it is of very 
 recent date, especially that which deals with the Indians 
 of the Pacific coast. The early Relations of the French 
 Fathers were faithful, and, as a rule, intelligent records 
 of events which the priests themselves witnessed. The 
 accounts of the French and Indian traders and travellers 
 
 148 Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. ill, p. 331. 
 110 Romans, p. 70; Bossu, Vol. I, p. 306. 
 
 150 The Century, Vol. xxvi, p. 28, Cushing. 
 
56 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 are neither as accurate nor as reliable as those contained 
 in the Relations. Some of these authors faithfully re- 
 corded what they saw ; others wrote to make books. 
 They differ widely in value as authorities and must be 
 judged upon their individual merits. 
 
 Much of our information concerning the manners and 
 customs of the natives of the Pacific coast is derived from 
 the publications of our national government. The re- 
 ports which are collated in these documents are from a great 
 number of observers and are not uniform in character, 
 but many of them have great value. As a whole, the 
 work was well done and in a scientific manner. 
 
 The narration of the different games tells its own story. 
 Lacrosse is found throughout the country ; platter or 
 dice is distributed over an area of equal extent ; chun- 
 kee was a southern and western game ; straws a north- 
 ern game with traces of its existence in the west ; the 
 guessing game was apparently a western game. Every- 
 where, gambling prevailed to the most shocking extent. 
 
 There are writers who seek to reduce the impressions 
 of the extravagance indulged in by the Indians at these 
 games. The concurrence of testimony is to the effect 
 that there was no limit to which they would not go. 
 Their last blanket or bead, the clothing on their backs, 
 their wives and children, their own liberty were sometimes 
 hazarded ; and if the chances of the game went against 
 them the penalty was paid with unflinching firmness. 
 The delivery of the wagered wives, Lescarbot tells us, 
 was not always accomplished with ease, but the attempt 
 would be faithfully made and probably was often successful. 
 Self-contained as these people ordinarily were, it is not a 
 matter of surprise that the weaker among them should have 
 been led to these lengths of extravagance, under the high 
 
INDIAN GAMES 
 
 57 
 
 pressure of excitement which was deliberately maintained 
 during the progress of their games . 151 From one end of 
 the land to the other these scenes were ushered in with 
 ceremonies calculated to increase their importance and 
 to awaken the interest of the spectators. The methods 
 used were the same among the confederations of the north 
 and of the south ; among the wandering tribes of the 
 interior; among the dwellers in the Pueblos; and among 
 the slothful natives of the Pacific coast. 
 
 The scene described by Cushing, where, at the sum- 
 mons of the " prayer-message,” the Zunis gathered upon 
 the house-tops and swarmed in the Plaza, to hazard their 
 property, amid prayers and incantations, upon a guess 
 under which tube the ball was concealed, is widely dif- 
 ferent from that depicted by the Jesuit Fathers in Canada, 
 where the swarthy Hurons assembled in the Council 
 House at the call of the medicine man and in the presence 
 of the sick man, wagered their beads and skins, upon the 
 
 151 The following extracts will illustrate these points: They will bet all they 
 have, even to their wives. It is true, however, that the delivery of the wagered 
 women is not easy. They mock the winners and point their fingers at them 
 (Lescarbot, Vol. ill, p. 754); all that they possess, so that if unfortunate, as some- 
 times has happened, they return home as naked as your hand (Lalemant Relation, 
 1639); their goods, their wives, their children (Ferland Vol. I, p. 134); some have 
 been known to stake their liberty for a time (Charlevoix, Vol. Ill, 319) ; have been 
 known to stake their liberty upon the issue of these games, offering themselves to 
 their opponents in case they get beaten (Gatlin, Vol. I, p. 132); I have known sev- 
 eral of them to gamble their liberty away (Lawson, p. 176); a Canadian Indian lost 
 his wife and family to a Frenchman (Sagard Theodat, Histoire du Canada Vol. i, 
 p. 243); they wager their wives (A. Colquhon Grant, Journal Royal Geog. Soc., 
 London, Vol. xxvn, p. 299) ; their wives and children (Irving’s Astoria, Vol. n, 
 p . 91 ) ; their liberty (Parker’s Journal of an Exploring Tour, pp. 249-50); Dome- 
 nech has never known men to bet their wives (Vol. II, p. 191) ; women bet as well 
 as men (Romans, p. 79; Am. Naturalist, Vol. xi, No. 6, 551); Philander Prescott 
 (Schoolcraft, Vol. iv, p. 64); Cushing (Century, Vol. xxvi, p. 28); the liberty of a 
 woman wagered by herself (Lalemant, Relation 1639); women are never seen to 
 bet (Le Page du Pratz, Vol. Ill, p. 2; Mayne Br. Col., p. 276); rash gambling some- 
 times followed by suicide (Romans p.79; Brebeuf, Relation 1636). 
 
 8 
 
58 
 
 INDIAN GAMES. 
 
 cast of the dice. It differs equally from the scene which 
 travellers have brought before our eyes, of the Chinooks, 
 beating upon their paddles and moaning forth their mo- 
 notonous chants, while gathered in a ring about the 
 player, who with dexterous passes and strange contor- 
 tions manipulated the stone and thus added zest to the 
 guess which was to determine the ownership of the prop- 
 erty staked upon the game. The resemblances in these 
 scenes are, however, far more striking than the differ- 
 ences. Climate and topography determine the one. Race 
 characteristics are to be found in the other. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBAN A