INDIAN OAMES. 121 



game. Here the " sticks" were thrown in the air and an 

 iraniediate gness was made whether the number thrown 

 was odd or even. An umpire kept the account with 

 other sticks and on this connt the bets were adjusted.''^ 



Wherever Ave find it and whatever tlie form in use, 

 whether simple or complicated, like games of lacrosse and 

 platter the occasion of its play was but an excuse for in- 

 dulgence in the inveterate spirit of gambling which every- 

 where prevailed. 



CHUNKEE OK HOOP AND POLE. 



Among the Indians at the south, observers noted and 

 described a game of great antiquity, of which we have no 

 record during historical times among those of the north, 

 unless we should classify the game of javelin described by 

 Morgan"'^ as a modified form of the same game. The gen- 

 eral name by which this game was known was chunkee. 

 AVlicn Iberville arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi he 

 despatched a party to explore the river. The officer who 

 kept the "Journal do la fregate, le Marin" was one of that 

 party and he recorded the fact that the Bayagoulas and 

 Mougoulachas passed the greater part of their time in 

 playing in this place with great sticks which they throw 

 after a little stone, which is nearly round and like a bul- 

 let.'' Father Gravier descended the river in 1700 and at 

 the village of Iloumas he saw a "fine level square where 

 from morning to night there are young men who exercise 



"Kotzebue, A Vojage of Discovery, etc. London. 1821. Vol. i, p. 2S2 nnd Vol. 

 in, p. 41, note. W. H. Emory, U. S. and Mexican Boundary Survey, Vol. i, p. ill, 

 says : " The Yuraas played a game with bticks like jackstrawa." Stanley, Smith- 

 sonian MisccUaueous Collections, Vol. ii, p. ."JS, gives among his "Portraits of 

 North American Indians," a picture of a game whicli he describes as " played ex- 

 clusively by women. They hold in their hands twelve sticks about six inches in 

 length which they drop upon a rock. The sticks that fall across each other are 

 counted lor game." 



'« League of the Iroquois, p. 300. '".Margry, Decouvcrtes, etc., Vol. 4, p. 26L 



KSSIiX INST. UULLICTIN, VUL. XVII. 16 



