804 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



plain. The third stick is about 3^ inches in length, made of another 

 wood, and possibly belongs to another set. Collected by Dr. Emil 

 Hassler. Dr. Hassler informed the writer that they are tossed in the 



air and if three round sides fall upper- 

 most they gain. "The sticks must fall 

 parallel." 



Referring to the Toba, Cardus' says: 



Their i)rincipal game consists in raising and 

 letting fall to the ground some small pieces of 

 sjjlit reed with much shouting ; the object of the 

 shouting, on one side, that the pieces may fall 

 well, and on the other that they njay fall badly. 

 The stakes are usually a horse, a cow, a slave, a 

 sheep, or a poncho. 



Another set of similar gambling in- 

 struments froui the Indians of the Grand 

 Chaco are represented in fig. 118. They 

 were exhibited by Dr. Hassler in his 

 collection at the Columbian Exposi- 

 tion, but unfortunately can not now be 

 found in the Field Columbian Museum, 

 to which the collection was transferred. 

 The two large bones are tossed, their 

 falls determining the count, which is 

 recorded by means of the small radial 

 bones that are strung upon the cord. 

 The men who play this game carry the 

 implements suspended from their wrist.^ 

 The games above described led the 

 writer to make a particularly careful 

 search for objects that might have served 

 for gaming implements in collections 

 from ancient Peru. In the collection 

 made by Dr. Max Uhle, at Pachaca- 

 mac, for the University of Pennsylvania, now in its Museum, are a 

 number of narrow, flat tablets of hard wood that might possibly have 

 been used as gaming staves. The same conjecture might be hazarded 

 with reference to six slips of cane (Cat. No. 28393) found together on a 

 mummy in the first cemetery. These slips, which are 4 inches in length 

 by about ^ inch in width, are wound with colored thread, black, yellow, 



Fig. 118. 



PATR OF BONES AND COUNTERS FOR GAME 



Grand Chaco Indians. 



Field Columbian Museum. Hassler collection. 



'Las Misiones Franciscanas entre los infideles de Bolivia por el R. P. Fr. .Jose 

 Cardus, Barcelona, 1886, p. 263. 



-I tind the following reference to games of this type among the South American 

 Indians: Molina (History of Chili, II, p. 9), in describing the games of the Araucan- 

 ians, says, "the game of quechx, which they esteem highly, has a great affinity to 

 that of backgammon, but instead of dice they make use of triangular pieces of bone 

 marked with points, Avhich they throw with a little hoop or circle supported hj two 

 pegs, as was probably the fritillus of the ancient Romans." 



