CHESS AND PLAYING-CARDS. 



717 



It seems liardly necessary to point out that lie failed to comprehend 

 the object of the game. 

 Pawnee. 



In reply to a letter addressed by the writer to Mr. George Bird Grin- 

 nell, of New York City, he kindly wrote the following account "of what 

 the Pawnee call the seed game:" 



I have seen this game played among the Pawnee., Ankara, and Cheyenne, and 

 snbstantially in the same way everywhere. The Pawnee do not nsc a howl to throw 

 the seeds, but hold them in a Hat wicker basket, aliout tiie size and shape of an 

 ordinary tea plate. The woman 

 who makes the throw holds the 

 basket in front of h(!r close 

 to the ground; gives tke stones 

 a sudden toss into the air, and 

 then moves the basket smartly 

 down against the ground, and 

 the stones fall into it." They 

 are not thrown high, but the 

 movemeutof thebasketis ([uick, 

 and it is brought down hard on 

 the ground so that the sound of 

 the slai)ping is easily heard. 

 The plum stones are always live 

 in number, blackened, and vari- 

 ously marked on one side. The 

 women who are gambling sit In 

 line opposite to one another, 

 and usually each woman bets 

 with the one sitting opposite 

 her, and the poiuts ar(> counted 



by sticks placed on the ground between them, the wager always being on the game, 

 and not on the different throws. It is exclusively, so far as I know, a woman's game. 



Pike^ says: 



The third game alluded to is that of la platte, described by various travelers (as 

 the platter or dish game) ; this is played by the av omen, children, and old men, who, 

 like grasshoppers, crawl out to the circus to bask in the sun, probably covered only 

 with an old buffalo robe. 



ESKIMAUAN STOCK. 



Speaking of the Central Eskimo, Dr. Franz Boas^ says: 

 A game similar to dice, called tingmiujang, i. e., images of birds, is frequently 

 played. A set of about fifteen figures, like those represented in fig. 42, belong to 

 this game; some representing birds, others men and women. The players sit around 

 a board or a piece of leather and the figures are shaken in the hand and thrown 

 upward. On falling, some stand upright, others lie fiat on the back or on the side. 

 Those standing upright belong to that player whom they face; sometimes they are 

 so thrown that they all belong to the one that tossed them up. The players 

 throw by turns until the last figure is taken up, the one getting the greatest num- 

 ber of figures being the winner. 



' Elliott Cones, The Expedition of Zebulon Montgomery I'ike, New York, 1895, 

 p. 534. 



''The Central Eskimo, Sixth Annual Report of the IJureau of Ethnology, AVash- 

 ington, 1888, p. 567. 



Fig. 42. 



IVORY IMAGES USED AS DICE IN GAME OF TINGMIUJANG. 



Central Eskimo. 



Frc.m Sixth Annu.-il Rei.ort of the Bureau of Ellmi.logy. 



