BACKGAMMON AMONG THE AZTECS. 499 



hear Mexican culture talked of as self-produced, with its bronze and 

 gold work, its elaborate architecture and sculpture, its monastic and 

 priestly institutions, its complicated religious rites and formulas. It 

 was my fortune years ago to travel in Mexico and explore its wonderful 

 ruins, and ever since I have held to the view that the higher art and 

 life of the whole Central American district is most rationally accounted 

 for by a carrying across of culture from Asia. Thus it is now a peculiar 

 pleasure to me to supplement Humboldt's group of arguments with a new 

 one which goes on all-fours with them. It may very well have been the 

 same agency which transported to Mexico the art of bronze-making, the 

 computation of time by periods of dogs and apes, the casting of nativi- 

 ties, and the playing of backgammon. What that agency was one can 

 as 3'et do no more than guess, but too much stress must not be laid on 

 it in speculating on the mass migrations of the American races. Such 

 matters as arts or games are easily carried from country to country ; 

 nor can we treat as inaccessible to Asiatic influences the Pacific coast 

 of North America, where disabled junks brought across by the ocean 

 current are from time to time drifted ashore, now and then with their 

 crews alive. The Asiatic communication to be traced in the culture of 

 the Aztec nation may not have been very ancient or extensive ; all we 

 can argue is, that communication of some sort there was. 



Now one thing leads to another, especially in ethnology. Curiously 

 enough, by following up the traces of this trivial little game, we get an 

 unexpected glimpse into the history of the ruder North American tribes. 

 Having learned about patolli as played in old Mexico, let us take up 

 the account of a Jesuit missionary. Father Joseph Ochs, who was in 

 Spanish America in 1754-'68, and who is here writing about the tribes 

 of Sonora and Chihuahua : " Instead of our cards they have slips of 

 reed or bits of wood a thumb wide and near a span long, on which, as 

 on a tally, different strokes are cut and stained black. These they hold 

 fast in the hand, lift them up as high as they can, and let them drop on 

 the ground. Whichever then has most strokes or eyes for him wins 

 the stake. This game is as bad as the notorious hazard. They call it 

 patole. As it is forbidden on pain of blows, they choose for it a place 

 in the bush ; but the clatter of these bits of wood has discovered me 

 many a hidden gamester. To play more safely, they would spread a 

 cloak or carpet so as not to be betrayed by the noise." Here, then, is 

 found* toward a thousand miles northwest of the city of Mexico, a game 

 which may be described as patolli without the counters, and which still 

 bears the Aztec name, in a district whose language is not Aztec, so that 

 the proof of its having traveled from Mexico seems complete. The 

 people, being less intellectual than the old Mexicans, have droj^ped the 

 skillful part of the game and are content with the mere dicing. Nor, 

 by the way, is this the only place where backgamm.on has so come down, 

 for in Egypt they will lay aside the board and throw the t^b-sticks for 

 fun, those who throw four and six being proclaimed Sultan and Vizier, 



