181 KELIQUL& AQUITANICLE. 



Dr. E. Brown observes (in a letter dated Sept. 28, 1868): "Always under correction, not having seen 

 the original, I am very strongly inclined to believe that it was a Gambling-tool, used in much the same way 

 as dice, the regular dotted markings, and possibly some of the transverse ones at the edge, being equivalent 

 to the marks on dice, or having some reference to the chances of the game. How it was used, it is now 

 impossible even to conjecture, so multifarious are the gambling-tools of savages at the present day. 



" The Indians on the North-west Coast of America are inveterate gamblers, and, among numerous other 

 contrivances, have a game called (by the Tsongeisth, near Victoria) ' Smee-tell-aew,' played with Beavers' 

 teeth (the incisors). A blanket is spread on the ground; the number of players is two or three (generally 

 two) ; and the gambling-implements are eight teeth, marked as follows : two of them with one ' spot,' four 

 with five, two with three sets of transverse bars, and one of the ' spotted ' ones with a ring of leather. The 

 teeth are tossed with a circular motion from the hand, and counted in pairs, each of which counts one ; but 

 if more than two of each kind turn up, it is counted as nothing. If two teeth, one with bars and another 

 with spots, turn up, and one of them is the leather-marked tooth (or 'ace'), it counts double (four); and so 

 on, until the counters (the leg-bones of Wild Ducks) are exhausted. 



"I remember, in the summer of 1861, picking up (among other curiosities from the wild Eskimo of 

 Pond's Bay, in Baffin's Bay) some beautifully polished pieces of Walrus ivory, with almost identical figures 

 marked on them. I was then puzzled to make out their use, but am now convinced that they were 

 gambling-tools, essentially the same in character with the Tsongeisth ' Smee-tell-aew.' There is no race of 

 savages so rude that they have not some game of chance ; and, indeed, it seems almost to be a rule that the 

 gambling propensity bears an inverse ratio to their elevation in the social scale. 



" During last summer (1867) I did not see any gambling among the Greenlanders ; but they are now so 

 far changed that no criterion can be drawn from them. They are (up to 72 N. lat. at least) a civilized 

 race, though compelled by necessity to resort to a savage mode of subsistence. 



" I doubt not that the old Cave-dwellers of Dordogne were also gamblers, and that, if the tool figured 

 (fig. 13) on B. Plate XIII. is not a gambling-implement, others will be found." 



Mr. Frank Poole refers to some Gaming-sticks used by North- American Indians, 

 in his ' Queen-Charlotte Islands,' 8vo, 1872, pp. 319, 320, as follows : 



" The game was Odd or Even, which is played thus. The players spread a mat, made of the inner bark 

 of the yellow cypress, upon the ground, each party being provided with from -forty to fifty round pins or 

 pieces of wood, five inches long by one eighth of an inch thick, painted in black and blue rings, and beau- 

 tifully polished. One of the players, selecting a number, of these pins, covers them up in a heap of bark 

 cut into fine fibre-like tow. Under cover of the bark, he then divides the pins into two parcels, and, 

 having taken them out, passes them several times from his right hand to his left, or the contrary. While 

 the player shuffles, he repeats the words ' I E Ly yah,' to a low monotonous chant or moan. The moment 

 he finishes the incantation, his opponent, who has been intently watching him, chooses the parcel where he 

 thinks the luck lies for Odd or Even ; after which the second player takes his innings, with his own pins 

 and the same ceremonies. This goes on till one or the other loses all his pins. That decides the game"*. 



I. As to Shape. A plain bone knife (from Moosseedorf), the blade of which 

 somewhat resembles our specimen, is figured in Keller's ' Lake-dwellings,' &c., 



* Specimens of the North-American Dice and Gaming-sticks are preserved in the British Museum and in 

 the Christy Collection. In ' The Eaces of Mankind ' (Cassell & Co.), Part II., p. 35, Dr. Brown has described 

 a similar game. 



