INDIAN GAMES. 113 



vice versa, score nothing ; two of each score one ; four alike 

 score four. The thrower keeps on throwing until he makes 

 a blank throw, when another takes the dice. When all 

 the players have stood their turn, the one who has scored 

 the most takes the stakes." 



The women of the Yokuts, 61 a Californian tribe which 

 lived in the San Joaquin valley near Tulare Lake, had a 

 similar game. Each die was half a large acorn or walnut 

 shell filled with pitch and powdered charcoal and inlaid 

 with bits of bright colored abaloni shell. Four squaws 

 played and a fifth kept tally with fifteen sticks. There 

 were eight dice and they scooped them up with their hands 

 and dashed them into the basket, counting one when two 

 or five flat surfaces turned up. 



Schoolcraft 62 says "one of the principal amusements of 

 a sedentary character is that of various games, success in 

 which depends on luck in numbers. These games, to which 

 both the prairie and forest tribes are addicted, assume the 

 fascination and intensity of gambling ; and the most valued 

 articles are often staked upon the luck of a throw. For 

 this purpose the prairie tribes commonly use the stones of 

 the wild plum or some analogous fruit, upon which various 

 devices indicating their arithmetical value are burned in, 

 or engraved and colored, so as at a glance to reveal the 

 character of the pieces." Among the Dacota tribes this is 

 known by a term which is translated the "game of plum 

 stones." He gives illustrations of the devices on five sets 

 of stones, numbering eight each. "To play this game a 

 little orifice is made in the ground and a skin put in it ; 

 often it is also played on a robe." 63 The women and the 

 young men play this game. The bowl is lifted with one 



i Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. HI, p. 377. 

 62 Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes, Vol. II, pp. 71, 72. 



Domenech, Vol. n, p. 191 ; First Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology, 

 Smithsonian, 1881, p. 195. 



ESSEX INST. BULLETIN, VOL. XVII. 15 



