896 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



two sides had lost everything. * * * The game of straw," says Perrot,' from 

 whose accouut we have made the foregoing digest, "is ordinarily held in the cabins 

 of the chiefs, which are large, and are, so to speak, the Academy of the Savages." 



Lawson^ describes it, but in slightly modified form, as follows: 



"Indian Cards. — Their chiefest game is a sort of Arithmetick, which is managed 

 by a parcel of small split reeds, the thickness of a small Bent. These are made very 

 nicely, so that they part, and are tractable in their hands. They are fifty-one in 

 number, their length about 7 inches. When they play, they throw part of them to 

 their antagonist. The art is to discover, upon sight, how many yon liave, and what 

 you throw to him that plays with you. Some are so expert at their numbers that 

 they will tell ten times together what they throw out of their hands. Although the 

 whole play is carried on with the quickest motion it is possible to use, yet some are 

 so expert at this game as to win great Indian Estates by this Play. A good set of 

 these reeds fit to play withal are valued and sold for a dressed doe-skin." 



The first game described by Roger Williams^ in his Chapter on Gaming is "a game 

 like nnto the English Cards, yet instead of Cards they play with strong Rushes." 

 In his vocabulary he gives "Akesuog: they are at cards, or telling Rushes; Pissinue- 



Fig. 208. 

 EOD AND COVER USED IN FAN T'AN. 



Length of rod, 17^ inches; diameter of cup, 3i inches. 

 Canton, China. 



C.it. Nos. 7159, 7160, Museum of Archseology, University of Pennsylvani.a. 



ganasli: their playing Rushes; Ntakhemin : I am a telling or counting; for their 

 play is a kind of Arithmatick." Straehey foand this game among the Indians in Vir- 

 ginia. He describes it as follows: "Dice play, or cardes, or lotts, they know not, 

 how be it they use a game npon rushes much like primero, wherein they card and 

 discard and lay a stake or two, and so win or lose." 



Mr. Davis cites other references to the game by Fathers Brebeuf,* Boucher,^ 

 Lafitau,'' Charlevoix,^ and Beverly,** none of which throw any additional light upon it. 



'Nicholas Perrot, M^moire sur les Mceurs, Coustumes et Relligion des Sauvages de 

 I'Amerique Septentriouale, Leipzig and Paris, 1867. 



2.John Lawsou, History of North Carolina, London, 1718, p. 176. The tribes whose 

 customs are described by him are Catawba, Tuskeruro (Tuscarora), Pampticough, 

 and Woccon. He does not specify that the game was played by anj' one of these 

 tribes in particular. 



^Roger Williams, A Key to Language of America, etc., together with brief obser- 

 vations of the Customes, Manners, etc., Providence in New England, London, 1643, 

 Chap. XXYIII. 



••Relations des J6suites, Quebec, 1858. 



^Pierre Boucher, True and Genuine Description of New France, etc., Paris, 1644. 

 Translated under title Canada in the Seventeenth Century, Montreal, 1883. 



•'P. Lafitau, Mcpurs des Sauvages Ameriquains, etc., Paris, 1724. 



'Le P. de Charlevoix, Historie de la Nouvelle France, Journal d'un Voyage, etc., 

 Paris, 1744. 



^Robert Beverly, History of Virginia, 1705. 



