698 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



hollowed to a depth of ahout f inch in the center. This dish plays an important sole 

 in the older legends of tlie Micmacs. Filled with water and left over night, its 

 appearance next morning serves to reveal hidden knowledge of post, present, and 

 future. It is also said to have heen used as a vessel upon an arkite trip. The dice 

 of caribou hone are six in number, having flat faces and rounded sides. One face is 

 phiin; the other hears a dotted cross (tig. 18). When all the marked or all the 

 unmarked faces are turned up there is a count of tive points; if five marked faces 

 and one unmarked face or five unmarked faces and one marked face are turned up, 

 one point results; if a die falls ott" the dish there is no count. There are fifty-five 

 counting sticks — fifty-one plain rounded ones about 7i inches long, a king-pin ' 

 shaped like the forward half of an arrow, and three notched sticks, each present- 

 ing half of the rear end of an arrow. Tlieso last four are about 8 inches long. 

 Three of the plain sticks form a count of one jioint, the jiotcbed sticks have a value 

 of five points, while the king-pin varies in value, being used as fifty-second plain 

 stick, except when it stands alone in the general ])ih'; then it has, like the notched 

 sticks, a value of five points. Thus the possible points of the count are seventeen 

 (one-third of fifty-one) on the plain sticks and fifteen (five times three) on the three 

 notched sticks, a total of thirty-two ; but by a complex system the count may be 

 extended indefinitelj\ In playing the game two players sit opposite each other, 

 their legs crossed in a characteristic manner, and the dish, or woltes, between them 

 usually placed on a thick piece of leather or cloth. A squaw keeps the score on the 



Fig. 20. 

 COUNTING STICKS FOR WOLTES TAKt)N. 



Length, 7| inches. 

 Micmac Indians, Nova Scotia. 



Cat. No. 18850, Museum of Arnhaeoloffy, University of Pennsylvania. 



counting-sticks, which at first lie together. The six dice are placed on a dish with 

 their marked faces down ; one of the players takes the dish in both hands, raises it 

 an inch or two from the ground, and brings it down again with considerable force, 

 thus turning the dice. If all but one of the upturned faces are marked or unmarked, 



'Mr. Hager informs me that the king-pin is called keser/oo — ''the old man " — and 

 that the notched sticks are his three wives and the plain sticks his children. The 

 Micmac explains these names by saying that when a stranger calls the children 

 come out of the wigwam first, then the women, and then the head of the family ; and 

 this is the way it happens when one plays at wdltestdmlcuiun. ''The technical name 

 for the king-pin is nandaymelf/awasch and for the wives ilcumooivaaJ, both of which 

 names mean, they say, 'it counts five' and 'they count five.' Nan is the Micmac for 

 'five,' but no numeral of which I know appears in the second name." Mr. Hager 

 regards the polygamous element in the game as a good indication of its antiquity, 

 if, he adds, "such indeed be necessary." Referring to the passes described by Mrs. 

 W. W. Brown, in her paper on the games of the Wabanaki Indians (see p. 708), he 

 says: "These ]iasses are made by'the Micmac in woltes tdmlwtm by passing the right 

 hand rapidly to the left over the dish, and shutting it exactly as if catching a fly." 

 Wedding ceremonies among the Micmac were celebrated by the guests for four days 

 thereafter. On the first day they danced the serpent dance, on the second they 

 played football (tooadyik), on the third they played lacrosse (madijik), and on the 

 fourth woltestumkivun. 



