CHESS AND PLAYING-CARDS. 



715 



a game plaj^ed by Navajo womeu under the name of Tse d VI or 



tsiu-(7i'^:i 



The principal implements are three sticks, which are thrown violently, enda 

 down, on a flat stone around which the gamblers sit. The sticks rebonnd so well 

 that they wonld tly far away were not a blanket stretched overhead to throw them 

 back to the players. A number of small stones placed in the form of a s([iiare are 

 u.'-ed as counters. The.se are not moved, but sticks, whose positions are changed 

 according to the fortunes of the game, are placed between them. The rules of the 

 game have not been recorded. 



Dr. Matthews ' tells, among the early events of the fifth or present 

 world, that while they were waiting for the ground to dry, the women 

 erected four poles, on which they stretched a deerskin, and under the 



Fig. 39. 



SET OP STAVES FOR GAME. 



Length, 8 inches. 

 Navajo Indians, New Mexico. 



Cat. No. 9657, U.S.N.M. 



shelter of this they played the game of three sticks, tsinrZf, one of 

 the four games which they brought with them from the lower world.'' 

 Another game of tossed sticks described by Dr. Matthews^ was called 

 <aka-thad-sata,^ or the thirteen chips. 



It is played with 13 thin flat pieces of wood, which are colored red on one side 

 and left white or nncolorcd on the other. Success depends on the number of chips 

 which, being thrown upward, fall with their white sides up. 



1 Tsm = wood, di'U 



-Navajo Origin Legend, The Story of the Emergence, II (see p. 18.")). 



■ The other games were : rfilkon, played with two sticks, each the length of an arm; 

 atsit, played with forked sticks and a ring, and aspt'n. 



'Navajo Legends, p. S3. 



■' Taka-Zhad-sata was the first of four games played by the young iTasts^/io^au with 

 the gambling god No/(oilpi. These four games are not the same as the four descriljed 

 as brought from the underworld. They comprise, iu addition, nancor, " lioop and 

 pole;" tsi'nbelsi/, or push on the wood, iu which the contestants push on a tree until 

 it is torn from its roots and fulls, and tsol, or ball, the object in which was to hit tlie 

 ball SI) that it would fall l)eyond a certain line. Compare the gambling episole 

 with that of Pushaiyiinue, tlie Sia culture hero and the Magician. The four games 

 played by them were not the same (see xj. 730). 



