710 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



from liis collection, enjjraved with a cross on one side^ fig. 32 h repre- 

 senting a similar disk with a cross on both sides. 



SiKSiKA (Blackfeet). Canada. 

 Eev. Edward F. Wilson ' says: 



Their chief mniisements are horse racing and gambling. For the hitter of these 

 they employ dice of their own constinction— little cubes of wood, with signs instead 

 of numbers marked upon them. These they shake together in a wooden dish. 



Mr. J. W. Tims' gives l-atsdshini as a general term for gambling. 



Mr. George Bird Grinnell has furnished me with the following unpub- 

 lished account of the stave game among the Blackfeet, which he 

 describes under the name of nes teh, "The stick or travois^ game." 



This is a woman's gambling game, in vogue among the tribes of the Blackfoot 

 nation, who know nothing of the basket or seed game so generally played by the 

 more southern plains tribes. 



Four straight bones — made from buffalo ribs — 6 or 8 inches long, i inch thick, and 

 about f inch wide, and tapering gradually to a blunt point at either end, are used 

 in playing it (Plate 5). Three of these bones are unmarked on one side, and the 

 fourth on this side has three or five transverse grooves running about it at its mid- 

 dle, or sometimes no grooves are cut and the bone is marked by having a buckskin 

 string tied around it. On their other sides the bones arc marked, two of them by 

 zigzag lines, running from one end to the other; another, called the chief, has 

 thirteen equally distant holes drilled in, but not through it, from one end to the 

 other. The fourth, called "four," from its four depressions or holes, has four trans- 

 verse grooves close to each end, and within these is divided into four equal spaces 

 by three sets of transverse grooves of three each. In the middle of each of these 

 spaces a circular depression or hole is cut. All the lines, grooves, and marks are 

 painted in red, blue, or black. 



These bones are played with, either by two women who gamble against each 

 other or by a number of women who sit opposite and facing each other in two long 

 lines, each player contesting with her opposite neighbor. Twelve sticks, or counters, 

 are used in the game, and at first these are placed on the ground between the two 

 players. 



The player, kneeling or squatting on the ground, grasx^s the four bones in the 

 right or left hand, holding them vertically with the ends resting on the ground. 

 With a slight sliding motion she scatters the bones on the ground close in front of 

 her, and the sides which fall uppermost express the count or the failure to count. 

 Sometimes, but not always, 1' e players throw the bones to determine which shall 

 have the first throw in the game. 



The person making a successful throw takes from the heap of sticks the number 

 called for by the points of the throw — one stick for each point. So long as the 

 throw is one which counts the player continues to throw, but if she fails to count 

 the bones are passed over to the opposite player, and she then throws until she has 

 cast a blank. When the sticks have all been taken from the pile on the ground 

 between them the successful thrower begins to take from her opponent so many of 

 the sticks which she has gained as are called for by her throw. As twelve points 



'Report on the Blackfoot tribes. Report of the fifty-seventh meeting of British 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, Manchester, 1887, London, 1888, p, 192. 



'Grammar and Dictionary of the Blackfoot Language, London, 1889. 



•'The word trarois (tra])per, French) has been variously explained as coming from 

 travail and from traineau. I believe, however, as stated in The Story of the Indian, 

 p. l.^e, it is a corruption from travcrts or a travels, meaning across, and referring to 

 the crossing of the poles over the horse's or over the dog's withers (G. B. G,). 



