CHESS AND PLAYING-CARDS. 



817 



At the pivsciit (lay the Hottentot children cast lots by twigs — that is, if a tiling 

 is lost or a theft has been committed, they throw bits of stick and judge of the cul- 

 prit, or of the direction wherein the lost property is to be found, by the arrangement 

 of twigs, and among the KafBrs bundles of sticks and assagais are employed by 

 diviners in their rites for the discovery of crime.' 



Eeferriiig to the Melanesians, Codriiig^tou^ says: 



A game which belongs to the Banks Islands and New Helu'ides is lihit, the Fiji 

 tiqitd, played with reeds dashed in such a manner upon the grouncj. that they rise in 

 the air and fly to a considerable distance. In some islands, as Santa Maria, a string 

 is used to give impetus, and in some the reed is thrown also from the foot. The 

 game is played by two parties, who count pigs for the farthest casts, the numl)er of 

 pigs counted as gained depending on the number of knots in the winning fika. 

 When two villages engage in a match, they sometimes come to blows. There are 

 marks on the tika to show to whom 

 they belonged. It is remarkable that 



in Mota a decimal set of numerals is mmiFjmym 



used in this game, distinct from tlie / U^BJ^ ri^Mh 



quinary set used on every other occa- 

 sion of counting. 



In New y^ealand, according 

 to Taylor, ' tlie natives had a 

 way of divination by means of 

 sticks. This was called Xiu.* 

 Each chief had a i)articalar 

 name for his own stick; thus, 

 that of one chief was called Tc 

 ata niouHu; that of another, Te 

 inanu i te ra; and that of a 

 third, Tonga hiti. The person 

 consultiua; the Niu went out in 

 the morning before it was light, 

 so that no one should have been 



out before him, which would destroy tlie power of consultation, and 

 taking his stick, a short, thin one made of the mahoe, in his right hand, 

 and another representing the enemy in his left, he went and stu(;k 

 anothei' in the ground; this represented the tdpn; and placing the two 

 sticks together, one across the other, he uttered a larakia, and then 

 threw them in front of a third stick, and it was according to their posi- 

 tion that the consulter ascertained whether anyone was traveling on 



Fig. i:!4. 



COWHIE SHELLS USED IN FOUTliNK-TELLINIJ 



Liberia, Africa. 



Philadelphia Commercial Museum. 



' A. W. Buckland, Rhab<l(>iiiaii(y and Heloiuaucy, or Divination by the Rod and by 

 the Arrow, .lour. Anthrop. lust.. X, p. 445. 



- R. H. ("odrington, The Melanesians. Studies in their Anthro])o]ogy und l-'olk-Iore, 

 Oxford, 1891. p. 340. 



■' Rev. Richard Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants. London, 

 1855, pp. 91, 92. 



. ^The name nin is a well-known Polynesian word for cocoanut, which was spun 

 auumg the Polynesians for the purpose of divination. The New Zealauders, although 

 they have no cocoaiiuts, retain the^vord as a name for other kinds of divination, 

 especially that peribrmed by sti(dcs. (Dr. PI li. Tylor, Primitive Culture, p. 83. ) 

 NAT MI'S 9(i 52 



