906 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



Intended to illustrate method of marking arrows referred to on 

 page 881. 

 76. Gambling- STICKS. Alaska Indians. 



{a) A set of sixty-two sticks, 5 inches in length and i^r inch in diam- 

 eter, in leather pouch.' Marked with stripes or ribbons of red and 

 black paint, of various widths, and variously placed. Collected by 

 Dr. A. H. Hoff, U. S. A. 



(ft) Plaster cast of stick, showing carved figure of beaver. Copy of 

 one of set in the United Stales National Museum- (Plate 41), Haida 

 Indians, Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia. 



Mr. James G. Swan^ 

 gives the following ac- 

 count of the method of 

 play : 



The Haida use sticks or 

 pieces of wood 4 or 5 inches 

 long and beautifully polished. 

 They are made of yew, and 

 each stick has some designat- 

 ing mark upon it. There is 

 one stick entirely colored aud 

 one entirely plain. Each 

 phiyer will have a bunch of 

 forty or fifty of these sticks, 

 aud each will select either of 

 the plain sticks as his favorite, 

 just as in backganmion or 

 checkers the players select 

 the black or white pieces. The 

 Indian about to play takes up 

 a handful of these sticks, and, 

 putting them under a quantity 

 of finely separated cedar bark, 

 which is as fine as tow and kept constantly near him, he divides the pins into two 

 parcels, which he wraps up in the bark, and passes them rapidly from hand to hand 

 Tinder the tow, and finally moves them round on the ground or mat on which the 

 players are always seated, still wrapped in the line bark, but not covered by the 

 tow. His opponent watches every move that is made from the very first with the 

 eagerness of a cat, and finally, by a motion of his finger, indicates which of the par- 

 cels the winning stick is in. The player, upon such indication, shakes the sticks out 

 of the bark, and, with much display aud skill, throws them one by one into the 

 space between the players till the piece wauted is reached, or else, if it is not there, 

 to show that the game is his. The winner takes one or more sticks from his oppo- 

 nent's pile, and the game is decided when one wins all the sticks of the other. 



Dr. Franz Boas,"* in his Report of the Northwestern Tribes of Canada, 

 1895, gives the following account of the methods of play among the 

 Niskk4 (Chimmesyan) : 



Qaan. — Guessing game, played with a number of maple sticks marked with red or 

 black rings, or totemic designs. Two of these sticks are trumps. The object of the 



1 Cat. No. 9286, U.S.N.M. 2 Cat. No. 73552, U.S.N.M. 



^Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, No. 267, p. 7. 

 ^ British Association for the Advancement of Science, Ipswich, 1895. 



Cat. No. 1624' 



Fig. 216. 



STRING OF NINETY LOTTERY BALLS. 



Madrid, Spain. 



xm of Arehfieology, University of Pennsylvania. 



