854 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



and divinatory iu its origin. The board itself represents the Four 

 Quarters of the World. Its four arms, each with eight squares, may 

 be regarded as the four arms of the internal cross of the nyout circuit, 

 each of three points extended by the four arcs, each of five points. 



The position of the "castles" or squares marked with a cross on the 

 arms is not always the same,' but commonly, as on the cloth from the 

 Maldives (No. 43), they agree with the large circles at the four quarters 

 of the nyout circuit. 



The colors of the men agree with those assigned to the seasons of 

 the year and the four quarters of the world to which they correspond, 

 in Asia. When four persons play, the red and green, and black and 

 yellow play partners. This relation is indicated on the men used in 

 the Burmese game (No. 42), which are painted with the complementary 

 colors, the red men having green tips, and vice versa. This corresponds 

 with the relation assumed to exist between the seasons and the world 

 quarters and their corresponding colors. As each quarter of the world 

 has four quarters, each player in turn has four men. As the men or 

 pieces may be regarded in the cosmical game as actually representing 

 men, they appear as such in the Maldivian game (No. 43) like the men 

 of the Noah's Ark. The name of the pieces, gate (singular, got),- also 

 applied to the pawns in chess, is derived from the Sanskrit glioiaka, a 

 horse. This agrees with the Korean name of the men in layout : onal, 

 "horse," or "horsemen." 



The two faces of the Korean staves, black and white, may be regarded 

 as signifying, as will apj)ear in the following pages, the dual principles 

 of nature, masculine and feminine. A feminine significance is widely 

 attributed to the aperture of the cowrie shell. Its convex side would 

 naturally be regarded as masculine ; hence its substitution for the staves 

 would seem to have been an easy transition. 



The distribution of the game of Pachisi in Asia, as illustrated by 

 specimens in the U. S. National Museum and the Museum of the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania, is from Syria to the Philippines. 



39. Patolli. a game like Pachisi. Ancient Mexico. 



Eeproduction of native picture, from copy of sixteenth century 

 Hispano-Mexican manuscript, with kind permission of Mrs. Zelia 

 Nuttalh^* 



Mrs. Zelia Nuttall has kindly furnished me with the following trans- 

 lation of the Spanish text accompanying the picture: 



This is a game that the Indians had and named patole. It is like a game of dice, 

 and (played) upon a painted mat. In the following picture, and all who were mas- 



' They are sometimes placed on the fourth square and sometimes on the fifth, vary- 

 ing iu specimens from the same locality. 



"The word got, or properly ghot, Bengali, ghunti, is obviously a corruption of the 

 Sanskrit ^/lo^rtfca, a horse, Bengali and Hindi ghora, or ghote. Communicated to the 

 writer by the Swamee Vivikeuanda through Mrs. Florence B. Sherman. 



^Prospectus: Libro de la Yida que los Indios antiguamente hazian y Supersti- 

 ciones y malos Ritos que tenian y guardavan. An anouymous Hispano-Mexican Man- 



