CHESS AND PLAYING-CARDS. 



731 



KIOWAN STOCK. 



Kiowa. Indian Territory. (Cat. No. 152908«, U.S.I^.M.) 



Set of four sticks of willow wood, 7 inches in length, f inch in width, 

 and -h inch in thickness (ftg. 52), nearly hemispherical in section, with 

 one side flat, and having a deep groove, the stick being doubtless a sub- 

 stitute for the cane, like that used by the Zufii, as suggested by Mr. 

 Gushing. Three of the grooves are painted red, these sticks having 

 two obltque marks burned across the grooved face near each end. The 

 fourth stick has the groove painted black, with three lines burned across 

 the middle in addition to thos(5 at the ends. Its rounded reverse is 

 marked with a star in the center, composed of four crossed lines burned 

 in the wood. The rounded sides of the others are plain. The col- 

 lector, Mr. James Moo- 

 ney,^ prefaces his ac- 

 count of the game with 

 the following song, em- 

 ployed in the (Ihost 

 Dance: 



Hisc' hi, hisc' hi, 

 Ha' line' hakii' Iha' na, 

 Ha' tine' bahti' tha' na, 

 JJaii' ta-ii' seta' na, 

 Hdti' ta-n' seta' na. 



TRANSLATION. 



My comrade, my comrade, 

 Let us play the awl game, 

 Let lis play the awl game, 

 Let us play the dice game. 

 Let us play the dice game. 



SET OK STAVES i'OR GAME. 



(Th<i lowest 8tick .shows obverse of one above it.) 



Length, 5i inches. 



Kiow.a Indians, Indian Territory. 



Cat. N". lo'.'WSA, f.S.X.M. 



The woman who com]>osed 

 this song tells how, on wak- 

 ing up in the spirit world. 



she met there a party of her former girl <ompani..ns and sat down with them to 

 play the two games uuivcrsally popular with the prairie tribes. 



Tlie first is called nv' biikn' thana by tlie Arapaho and tsonil or -'awl game" (from 

 tson, an awl) by the Kiowa, on account of an awl, the Indian woman's substitute for 

 a nc'edlc, being used to keep record of the score. The game is becoming ol)8olete in 

 the north, but is the everyday summer amnsemeut of the women among the Kiowa, 

 Comanche, and Apache in tlie southern plains. It is very amusing on account of the 

 unforeseen " rivers" and " whips" that are constantly turning up to disappoint the 

 expectant winner, and a party of women will frequently sit around the blanket for 

 half a day at a time, with a constant ripple of laughter and good-humored jokes as 

 they follow the chances of the play. It would make a very pretty picnic game, or 

 could be readily adapted to the i>arlor of civilizatiou. 



The players sit on the ground around a blanket marked in charcoal with lines and 

 dots and quadrants in the comers, as shown in lig. 6. In the center is a stone upou 

 which the sticks are thrown. Each dot, excepting those between the parallels, 



'The Ghost Dance Keligion, Fourteenth Annual Keport of the Bureau of Ethnol- 

 ogy, Washington, 18!)6, II, p. 1002. 



