OHESS AND PLAYING-CARDS. 



697 



MiCMAC. Nova Scotia. (Cat. No. 18850, Mus. Arch., TJiiiv. Penii.) 



Set of six buttons of vegetable ivory (fig. 18) (actual buttons), about | 

 incli in diameter, rounded and unmarked on one side and Hat with a dot- 

 ted crosson theother, being 

 modern substitutes for 

 similar objects of caribou 

 bone. Bowl of wood (fig. 

 19), nearly fiat, llj inches 

 in diameter. Fifty-one 

 round counting-sticks (fig. 

 20), 1^ inches in length, and 

 four counting-sticks (fig. 

 21),7^inchesinlength. Col- 

 lected by the donor, Stans- 

 bury T. Hager. The follow- 

 ing account of the game is 

 given by the collector : ' 



A game much in use witliiu 

 the wigwams of the Micmac in 



former times is that called by some writers altestakitn or wdUes iakun. By good native 

 authority it is said that the proper name for it is woltvstomkwm. It is a kind of dice 



Fig. 18. 



SET OF BUTTONS FOR DICE IN WOLTES TAKOn. 



Diameter, | inch. 

 Micmac Indians, Nova Scotia. 



Cat. No. 1S850, Museum of Architoiogy, University of Pennsylvania. 



Fig. 19. 



WOODEN BOWL FOR WOLTES TAKf^N. 



Diameter, llj inches. 

 Micmac Indiana, Nova Scotia. 



Cat. No. 18860, Museum of Archa-ology, University of Pennsylvania. 



game of unknown antiquity, undoubtedly of pre-Columbian origin. It is played upon 

 a circular wooden dish — properly rock maple — almost exactly a foot in diameter, 



•Micmac Customs and Traditions, The American Anthropologist, January, 1895,p. 31. 



