CHESS AND PLAYING-CARDS. 801 



Iktli in Molina's dictiouary. Dr. Brinton informs me that the com- 

 bination canaUopan nemiminaliztU is defined by E. Simeon, in his 

 Bicfionnuue de la langue Naifhuatl, as "playing with horses." Again 

 Molino gives ne!jay(wtlaliztU = ^'}i\ego de canas, o escaramu^a" (skir- 

 mish) and juegos de pelea {wiir)==neyayaotlaliztii. 



A reference to the cane game is to be found in Torquemada.' Speak- 

 ing of the ceremonies in honor of Tlaloc- he says: 



The day on which they held feast to these gods was in the sixth month, whicli cor- 

 responds to our June. On this day they cleansed all cisterns and water conduits and 

 played with green maize stalks. 



Again, in the " Hymn of Tlaloc" ' occurs the passage: 



In Tlalocan, in the verdant house, they play at ball, they cast the reeds. 



Duran ^ (somewhat confusedly) describes a game with tossed canes 

 as follows : 



There was another game, which was that they made on a plaster floor little hollows 

 after the manner of afortuna (wheel of fortune?), and one took ten jjebbles and the 

 other ten others, and the one placing his pebbles ou the one edge and the other on 

 the other ou contrary sides, and taking some reeds split down the middle they 

 threw them on the ground so that they sprang up, and as many reeds as fell with 

 the hollow side upward so many ''houses" he moved his pebbles forward, and thus 

 oue such followed the other, and all pebbles as he overtook, he went on taking 

 away until he left his adversary without any.' (The meaning of the clause that fol- 

 lows is not clear.) 



The game of Patolli (No. 39) by which we now generally understand 

 the game played witli marked beans instead of canes or staves, upon 

 a cross shaped diagram, is probably a derived form of the cane game, 

 the use of beans being paralleled at the presentday among the Cherokee 

 (see p. 720). The word was a general name for games and was also 

 applied to the " dice," by which they were counted. Ribas uses it in 

 that sense in the account which lollows, referring to the Indians of 

 Sinaloa: 



The game that they call of the Patolli is very common among them and corre- 

 sponds to that of cards or dice, because in place of them they use certain four small 



'Monarchia Indiana, II, p. 147. 



"The deity who presided over the waters, the rains, the thunder, and the lightning. 

 The annual festival in his honor took place about the time of the corn planting, and 

 was intended to secure his favor for this all-important crop. Big Veda Americanus, 

 Daniel G. Brinton, Philadelphia, 1890, p. 2.5. 



^Rig Veda Americanus, p. 24. 



'Diego Duran, Historia de las Indias, III, Cap. XXII. A translation is given by 

 Tylor. On American Lot Games, p. 8; 



"^Habia otro juego que era que hacian encima de uueucalado unosoyos pequefiitos 

 ii manera de fortuna y el uno tomaba diez piedras y el otro otras diez y el uno ponfa 

 BUS piedras por la una acera y el otro por la otra en contrarias partes e con uuas 

 cauuelas hendidas por medio daban en el suelo y saltaban en alto y tantas cuantas 

 canuelas caian lo giieco hiicia arriba tantas casas adelantaba sus piedras y asi 

 seguian el uno al otro y todas cuantas chinas le alcanzaba se las iba quitando hasta 

 dejalle sin uingnna y acontecia habelle quitado cinco y seis y con las cuatro que le 

 quedaban decirle tambien las' canuelas que revolvia sobre el otro y ganalle el juego. 

 NAT MUS 96 51 



