INDIAN GAMES. 119 



count we have made the foregoing digest, " is ordinarily 

 held in the cabins of the chiefs, which are large, and are, 

 so to speak, the Academy of the Savages." He concludes 

 his account with the statement that the women never play 

 it. 71 The authority on this game whom Ogilby quotes 

 slides over the difficulties of the description with the state- 

 ment that " many other whimsies be in this game which 

 would be too long to commit to paper." Abbe Ferland 72 

 epitomizes the results of his investigation of this game 

 as follows : "Memory, calculation and quickness of eye- 

 sight were necessary for success." 



Like the game of dice or platter it was essentially a 

 house game, and like platter it is rarely mentioned by 

 writers who describe the habits of Indians in the south. 

 Lawson describes it, but in slightly modified form, as fol- 

 lows : " Indian Cards. Their chiefest game is a sort of 

 Arithmetick, which is managed by a parcel of small split 

 reeds, the thickness of a small Bent; these are made very 

 nicely, so that they part, and are tractable in their hands. 

 They are fifty-one in number, their length about seven 

 inches ; when they play, they throw part of them to their 

 antagonist; the art is, to discover, upon sight, how many 

 you have, and what you throw to him that plays with you. 

 Some are so expert at their numbers, that they will tell 

 ten times together, what they throw out of their hands. 

 Although the whole play is carried on with the quickest 

 motion it is possible to use, yet some are so expert at this 

 Game, as to win great Indian Estates by this Play. A 

 good sett of these reeds, fit to play withal are valued and 

 sold for a dressed doe-skin." 



A. W. Chase 73 speaks of " native games of cards 



See also Shea's Hennepin , p. 300. Vol. I, p. 134. 



"Overland Monthly, Vol. n, p. 433. Dorsey found a survival of the game in 

 use among the Omaha*. He called it " stick counting." Third Annual Report, 

 Bureau of Ethnology-, p. 338. 



