702 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



The count is as follows : 



If 6 marked faces fall face up, 50 points. 

 If 5 luarked faces fall face up, 5 points. 

 If 4 marked faces fall face up, 4 points. 

 If 3 marked faces fall face np, 3 points. 

 If 2 marked faces fall face up, 2 points. 

 If 1 marked face falls face up, 1 point. 

 If 6 unmarked faces fall face np, 5 points. 

 Total, 7 counts and 70 jioints. 



The marks on the Micmac dice are similar to those on some of the 

 inscribed shell beads known as runtecH^ fonnd in the State of New 

 York. One of these (fig. 24), (reproduced from Prof. W. H. Holmes's 

 Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans),' is from an ancient village 

 site at Pomi)ey, which Eev. W. M. Beauchamp, of Baldwiiisville, Xew 

 York, attributes to the seventeenth century. Mr. Beauchamp writes 



me that both sides are alike, and that 

 it is pierced with two holes from edge 

 to edge. 



Micmac. New Brunswick, Canada. 

 (Cat. Xo. 20125, Mus. Arch., Univ. 

 Penn.) 

 Set of six disks of caribou bone 

 marked on the flat side (fig. 25); a 

 platter of curly maple cut across the 

 grain, llj inches in diameter, and fifty- 

 two wooden counting sticks about 8 

 inches in length (fig. 2r>), four being 

 much broader than the others and of 

 different shapes, as shown in the figure. 

 Collected and deposited by Mr. George 

 E. Starr, who purchased the game from 

 a woman named Susan Perley, a member of a tribe calling themselves 

 the Tobique, at an Indian village half a mile north of Andover, New 

 Brunswick. Three of the disks and the counting sticks were made for 

 the collector, while the platter and three of the disks shown in the upper 

 row (fig. 25) are old. Two of the latter are made apparently of old bone 



wide concept of the four earth regions encircled by the horizon line and beneath the 

 curve of the sky represented by the curved surface. The looped figure may extend 

 the fourfold division to the sky, or it may be merely a combination of the two other 

 symbols. At least, that each design had some particular meaning can hardly be 

 questioned, for the Micmac still objects to playing the game if one be incorrectly 

 drawn. A comparison of the two Micmac dice games shows the same number of dice 

 in each and the cross and circle appear on both -sets, although in slightly differing 

 size and design. The dice of one game are, however, never used in the other. 

 Their counts differ radically, save that the ubiquitous number seven is prominent in 

 both, and finally Wubiinurunk lacks altogether the bow- and arrow elements and 

 their mystic attributes. Still, the resemblance is sufficiently close to suggest a pos- 

 sible unity of origin." (S. H.) 



' Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1881, plate xxxiv, fig. 4. 



Fig. 24. 



ENGKAVED SHELL BEAD (rutltee) . 



Pompey, Kew York. 



