CHESS AND PLAYING-CARDS. 855 



ters of their games, invocatecl a demon which they name Macuilsucitl, which means 

 Five Roses (flowers). They invocate him, so that he should give them luck in 

 winning.' 



All especial interest is attached to the game of Patolli from the fact 

 of its resemblance to the Hindu Pachisi being- regarded as one of the 

 strongest evidences of the Asiatic origin of the old Mexican culture. 

 Attention was first called to this resemblance by Dr. E. B. Tylor in a 

 paper before the Anthropological Institute, entitled " The game of 

 patolli in ancient Mexico and its probable Asiatic origin." ^ 



In plate 29 may be seen a picture of Patolli from Duran's Atlas, the 

 original being in colors. 



An excellent resume of the accounts of Patolli, as related by the 

 chroniclers, is given by Prof. E. B. Tylor in the Journal of the Anthro- 

 pological Institute, ' and republished in the Internationales Archiv fiir 

 Ethnograpbie.^ 



40. Chausar, or Plsl. Set of three ivory dice.^ Liicknow, India. 



Chausar is played upon the same board as Pachisi, with the substi- 

 tution of three dice marked with spots counting one, two, five, and six.*' 



Either long dice (Ko. 13) or short ones pointed at the ends, like those 

 here exhibited, are used. 



The shorter dice are said to be used as cheaper in price. The two 



uscript dating from the sixteenth century, consisting of 145 pages of illustrations 

 and descriptive text, preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence (Cod. 

 Magi. Class. 111. Pal., II, Cod. 3). Published in colored facsimile with English 

 Translation, Commentary, and Notes by Zelia Nuttall. 



'Another picture in the same manuscript, reproduced by Mrs. Nuttall, described 

 as the mauta de cinco rosas (Mantle of the Five Roses), suggests the attributes of this 

 god. It consists of a parallelogram, at the four corners of wliich are four circles, 

 each of the color attributed among the ]Mexicans to the Four Directions. 



"Xochipilli, lord of flowers, otherwise named Macuilxochitl, five flowers (the 

 name of a small odorous plant), was the deity who gave and protected all flowering 

 plants. As one of the gods of fertility and production, he was associated with 

 Tlaloc, god of rains." Brintou, Rig Veda Americanus, p. 40. 



-Journal of the Anthropological Institute, VIII, 1878. The first writer to discuss 

 the resemblances of the games of the American Indians with those of the Old World, 

 as an argument in favor of the Asiatic origin of the American race, was P. Lafitau 

 in his Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains Comparees aux Moeurs des Premiers Temps, 

 Paris, 1724. Under Des Jeiix (II, p. 338) he describes and illustrates the plum stone 

 game played upon a mat, and the bowl game, comparing them with the similar custom 

 of throwing cowrie shells, practiced by the negroes of Africa (see p. 815), and with 

 knuckle bones of classical antiquity. He then compares the game of straws, pailles, 

 with cards, and concludes with a parallel between the Indian ball games and those 

 of the Greeks and Romans. 



•On the Game of Patolli in Ancient Times and its probably Asiatic Origin, 1878. 



^On American Lot-Games as Evidence of Asiatic Intercourse before the Time of 

 Columbus, 1896. 



"^Cat. No. 7144, Mus. Arch., Univ. Penn. Chinese Games with Dice and Dominoes, 

 fig. 25, Report U. S. Nat. Mus., 1893, p. 532. 



'The variations in the game called Chausar, played with dice, from that of Pachisi 

 with cowries, are given by Mr. Edward Falkener. Games Ancient and Oriental, 

 London, 1892. 



