289 

 The Moccasin Game. 



Albert B. Reagan. 



The Moccasin game is an Apaclie nocturnal game. It is played by 

 the men only. The players and spectators gather in a circle around a 

 fire, which serves both for warmth and light. The players divide them- 

 selves into two groups, one of these groups occupies the west, the other 

 the east part of the circle, Avhich now assumes the form of an ellipse. 

 Then the sides begin to bet. One side puts up a saddle that it will win 

 the game. The other puts up a horse. So the betting goes on till the 

 members of each side have staked on the game practically all they have. 

 Then the game begins. It is on the same principle as the "chuck luck" 

 game of the English walnut hulls and the pea, except that it is more 

 complicatetl. It is a straight game of guess. 



There are two ways of playing this game. In the one (that used by 

 El Sa Say's band) each side has seven round holes dug in the earth to 

 the depth of about six inches. These holes are filled with leaves or tine 

 bark; and the ground in the immediate Aiciuity is covered with the same 

 material till the holes are practically hid from view, and instead of a pea 

 a round pebble about the size of an egg is used. In the other style of 

 playing, mounds of earth and variously arranged ridges are used instead 

 of holes; the pebble being used as in the first case. Should mounds of 

 earth be used, linnear marks are made on them to show the possible 

 places that the ball (pebble) may be hid. 



In playing the game, if it is the first one of the season, the sides draw 

 by lot to see which will get the pebble, that is. which will get to play 

 first. At all other times the winner in the previous game gets to play first. 



The lots having been cast, a member of the lucky side, while he and 

 his game ground are obscured from view with a blanket, puts the mystic* 

 pebble in the bottom of one of the holes; or. in case moiuids or ridges of 

 earth are being used, buries it in the dirt beneath one of the linear 

 lines. Then he carefully covers and smoothes everything all over so that 

 the location of the pebble can not be detected at all. This being done, a 



* So called "mystic " because each set of players pray over their respective stick and 

 pebble that they will have power to favor them in the grame. 



19— A. OF Science, '04. 



