CHESS AND PLAYING-CARDS. 



701 



Fig. 23. 



GAMING DISK FOR WOBUNARONK. 



Diameter, IJ inches. 

 Micmac Indiana, Nova Scotia. 



From a drawing by Stinsbury Hager. 



The ontflt for the game consists simply of six dice, made from moose 

 or caribou bone, though one Micmac at least is positive that the teeth 

 only of these animals can properly be used. In playing, these dice are 

 thrown from the right hand upon the 

 ground and the j)oints are counted accord- 

 ing to the number of marked or unmarked 

 faces which fall uppermost. It is cus- 

 tomary for a player to j)ass his hand 

 quickly over the dice, if possible, after 

 he has tossed them and before they reach 

 the ground, in order to secure good luck. 

 The shape of the dice is that of a decid- 

 edly flattened hemisphere, the curved 

 portion being unmarked. The base or 

 flat surface is about the size of a 25-cent 

 ])iece and presents tliree figures (fig. 23). 

 Close to its edge there is a circle, touched 

 at four points by a series of looped curves, 

 which form a kind of cross. Within each 

 of the four spaces thus separated is an 



equal-armed cross composed of nine dots, which, with the dot in the 

 center of the die, make a total of thirty-seven dots uiwn each piece, 

 or of two hundred and twenty-two dots (37 by C) used in the game.^ 



Southwest (see Cusbing's account of the wbite shell beads used in Sho'-U-ive), the 

 writer is iucliued to believe tbat the name of this same If'obiindrunk is derived from 

 the use of wampum (ivobun, "white," so called from the white beads), as stakes 

 for which it was played. Again, it may refer to the white disks ; but, however this 

 may be, a peculiar significance is attached to the use of shell beads as gambling- 

 counters or stakes. In the Chinese game of Fan t'du the stakes are represented by 

 specially made white and black counters, known as white and black "pearls."' 



"In view of the numerical suggestiveness of dots and of the presence of that 

 peculiar repetition of numbers which characterizes all triple multiples of the key 

 number thirty-seven, it may be worthy of note that the number of dots included in 

 the seven counts of the game is seven hundred and seventy-seven. The Micmac lan- 

 guage contains native words for numbers as great as a million, and, as Dr. Rand 

 says, is capable of indefinite numerical extension, a fact which surely appears to 

 involve some knowledge of the properties of numbers. That certain numbers have 

 been used as symbols in ritual and myth is quite as unquestionable among the 

 Micmacs as among so many tribes and peoples, primitive and otherwise. The impor- 

 tance of such dice games in developing and extending the knowledge of numbers is 

 self-evident. As to the figures upon the dice, the nse of the cross from prehistoric 

 times as a native symbol throughout the length and breadth of the Americas is too 

 well known to justify further comment. The Micmacs painted it upon their canoes 

 and wigwams and attributed to it marvelous efficacy as a healing power. To play 

 either WdJU'Stomkwun or W6hnnaruHkvi\t\\ dice from which the cross is omitted would 

 be certain, they believed, to bring dire misfortune npou all participants. Several 

 Micmacs have related to me, almost word for word, the same legend of the origin of 

 the cross among them that was reported by Pere Leclereq at Gaspe more than two 

 centuries ago; and it is noticeable that this legend contains no Christian element. 

 They also associated this symbol witli the four quarters into which they divided the 

 land for the purpose of collecting medicinal roots and herbs, while a circle repre- 

 sents to them either that of their wigwam or of tlie horizon. The fiat surface of tlie 

 die, therefore, with its four crosses and surrounding circle, may symbolize the world- 



