7<S2 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 189fi. 



In the highly finished arrows the cock or "tail" feathers were notched and tufted 

 to correspond numerically and positioually with the handings, for mythic reasons 

 into which it is not necessary to enter here. 



Each of the four cane slips was handed to correspond with the ribbandings of one 

 or another of these sets of the arrows ot the Four Quarters; but the paint bands (fig. 

 105} were almost invariably black and were placed in the concavity of the cane slips 

 (figs. 106-9), not on the periphery (which was, however, scorched, scored, or carved 

 to correspond), evidently to keep the paint from being worn off by handling and 

 casting. 



Thus the cane slip of the North was banded only at the middle, antl was called 

 d-thlu-a, or the "All Speeder," or "Sender" {A, "all," and thlu-ah, "to run," 

 "speed," or "stand ready"). 



The cane slip of the West was blackened its full length and was called Khvi'-vi- 

 kwa, or the "Black" (medicine), from Khvi-nd, "black," and ak'-lcioa, "medicine" 

 or "sacred." 



The cane slip of the South was doubly banded, as was the arrow of the South, 

 and was called _;Kf//)/-/o-«, or "divider divided" ( "bordered, inclosed"), irouxpatld-to, 

 " border," "edge," "end," and oa, "to become," "to do," or "make to do." 



Finally, the cane slip of tlie East was banded only at one end, and was called 

 Eo'-lia-lwa, the "White,'' or the "White Medicine" {E'ha-na, "white," and alc-kwa, 

 "medicine"). 



In addition to the banding and scoring of these cane slips, they were, in cases of 

 great importance (as in sets made from the captured arrows of some celebrated foe- 

 man), notched at the ends, as I have said the cock feathers were notched; but this 

 old practice has fallen into disuse to such extent tliat I have seen only one vener- 

 ated set so notched. In this set, if I observed aright, the notches corresponded in 

 number as well as in place, whether at sides or in the middle of the ends, with the 

 number and positions of the bandings and of the tuftings on the cock feathers 

 of the arrows from which, probably, they were made. The normal numerical value 

 of the cane slips agreed with the successional values of the regions they belonged 

 to — that is, the slip of the North made one; that of the West two; that of the South 

 three, and that of the East four. But as this gave unequal values, other values or 

 counts were added, according as the slips fell concave or convex sides uppermost, 

 and esi)ecially according to the thrower. 



That this may be understood, the general nature of the game as essentially a 

 sacred tribal process of divination must be considered. Formerly Sho'-li-icc was 

 exclusively a game of war divination, and was played only by Priests of the Bow, 

 members of the esoteric society of war shamans. 



These members were, according to their totems and clans, members of the clan 

 groups corresponding to the several quarters or sacred precincts of North, West, 

 South, East, Upper, Lower, and Middle regions. But since there were only four 

 regions concerned in the wage of war, clansmen of the upper and nether regions 

 were relegated to the east and west, since the places of the upper and lower regions 

 in the sacred diagram were in the Northeast — between the East and North, aud in 

 the Southwest — between the West and South; while clansmen of the middle niiglit, 

 as determined by the casts of their arrow canes, belong to anyone of the otlier 

 regions, since the miihuost was the synthetic region, the all-contaiuing and the all- 

 contained place, either the first, therefore, or the last. This war game of the Priests 

 of the Bow was played semiannually at the festivals of the Twain Gods of Wav, 

 Ahaiyuta and Matsaileraa, patrons of the game by virtue of the vanquishmeiit of 

 the Creational God of Gambling, Ml'-si-na, the Eagle-star God, whose forfeited 

 head now hangs in the Milky Way, and whose birds are the god-servants of war 

 and the plumers of the canes of war. 



It is played at such times as a tribal divination; a forecast for war or peace, for 

 prosperity or adversity, and is accouipanied by tribal hazards and gambling. But 

 at other times it is played for the determination of i)eace or war, of the direction or 



