Chapter LXXV: Section 3: Games

Many accounts of the games of the Indians have been published, but they are not often connected with pictography. Those now presented refer to the picturing connected with only three games.

Fig. 772.--A dead man was used in the ring-and-pole game. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1779-’80.

The figure represents the stick and ring used in the game of haka, with a human head in front to suggest that the corpse took the place of the usual stick. This and the next figure illustrate the game.

Fig. 773.--It was an intensely cold winter and a Dakota froze to death. American-Horse’s Winter Count, 1777-’78.

The sign for snow or winter, i. e., a cloud with snow falling from it, is above the man’s head. A haka-stick, which is used in playing that game, is represented in front of him.

Battiste Good’s record further explains the illustration by the account that the Dakota was killed in a fight with the Pawnees, and his companions left his body where they supposed it would not be found, but the Pawnees found it, and, as it was frozen stiff, they dragged it into their camp and played haka with it.

The characters _a_ and _b_, Fig. 774, represent one point of view of two of a set of Haida gambling sticks, real size. They are made of juniper or some other similar wood, and neatly carved with diverse figures. The game is played by any number of persons, and it would seem with any number of marked sticks. A dealer sits on the ground with a pile of shredded cedar bark in front of him, and with much ceremony draws out the sticks one by one without looking at them and passes them to the players, in turn, who sit in front of him.

Each device counts a certain number, in a manner similar to the devices on ordinary playing cards, and the winning is by the high and low or the definite and specific values of the sticks decided upon in variations of the games. These sticks are cylindrical, and to illustrate the characters on them, _c_ is presented, which shows the whole round of the character _b_. This exhibits the typical Haida style. An excellent collection of these pictured sticks is in the U. S. National Museum, No. 73552.

Dr. Fewkes (_c_) reports as follows:

Among the very interesting games played by the Hopi Indians is
one of ethnological interest, which is allied to a game described
by the early Spanish historians of the Mexicans. This game,
to-to-lós-pi, resembles somewhat the game of checkers and can be
played by two persons or by two parties. In playing the game a
rectangular figure, divided into a large number of squares, is drawn
upon the rock, either by scratching or by using a different colored
stone as a crayon. (Figures of this game formerly existed on the
rocks near the village of Wál-pi.) A diagonal line, tūh-ki-o-ta,
is drawn across the rectangle from northwest to southeast, and the
players station themselves at each end of this line.

When two parties play, a single person acts as player and the
other members of the party act as advisers. The first play is won
by tossing up a leaf or corn husk with one side blackened. The
pieces which are used are bean or corn kernels, stones, and wood,
or small fragments of any substance of marked color. The players
were stationed at each end of the diagonal line, tūh-ki-o-ta.
They move their pieces upon this line, but never across it. The
moves which are made are intricate and the player may move one or
more pieces successively. Certain positions entitle him to this
privilege. He may capture or, as he terms it, kill one or more of
his opponent’s pieces at one play. In this respect the game is
not unlike checkers, and to capture the pieces of the opponent seems
to be the main object of the game. The checkers, however, must be
concentrated and always moved towards the southeast corner.

This game is now rarely played on the East Mesa, but is still
used at O-rai-be. It is said to have been played in ancient times by
the sun and moon or by other mythical personages.

Turning now to old Mexico, we find that the Spanish chronicles
give an account of a Mexican game called patolli, which was played
with colored stones. The squares were made of a cross-shaped figure,
and the stones were moved according to the throws of beans which
were marked upon one side.

A discussion of the “ghost gamble,” with many illustrations, some of which show marks which, in a broad sense, may be classed as pictographic, is published in the paper “Study of the mortuary customs of the North American Indians,” by Dr. H. C. Yarrow (_a_), U. S. Army.

Colored pebbles found in the grotto of Mas d’Azil, in the department of the Ariège, France, have lately awakened some discussion. These pebbles were selected as being narrow and flat, and, with rare exceptions, are no more than 9 centimeters in length. They were colored with red oxide of iron. Many of the designs could have been made by the end of a finger anointed with the coloring matter, but others would have required a small pencil. The coloring matter was thick and probably fixed by grease or glue, which time has destroyed. The color now disappears on the least rubbing. Its preservation until now has been owing to the fact that the pebbles were left undisturbed in the cindery layer where they were deposited. Only one of the faces of the pebbles bears a design, and generally their border is ornamented by a narrow band of red, resembling a frame to the design, the color being applied in the same manner as to the latter. Fig. 775 gives examples though without color of these pebbles. They are selected from a plate in L’Anthropologie (_d_) illustrating the text by Émile Cartailbac, who declines to offer any hypothesis concerning the use of these objects. But to an observer familiar with the gambling games of the North American Indians in which marked plum stones, and similar objects are employed, these stained flat pebbles at once suggest their use to decide the values in a game by the several designs and by the pebbles falling on the figured or on the unmarked side.