INDIAN GAMES. 121 



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

 immediate guess was made whether the number thrown 

 was odd or even. An umpire kept the account with 

 other sticks and on this count the bets were adjusted. 75 



Wherever we find it and whatever the form in use, 

 whether simple or complicated, like games of lacrosse and 

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

 dulgence in the inveterate spirit of gambling which every- 

 where prevailed. 



CHUNKEE OR 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 76 as a modified form of the same game. The gen- 

 eral name by which this game was known was chuukee. 

 When Iberville arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi he 

 despatched a party to explore the river. The officer who 

 kept the "Journal de 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. 77 Father Gravier descended the river in 1700 and at 

 the villa'ge of Houmas he saw a "fine level square where 

 from morning to night there are young men who exercise 



"Kotzebue, A Voyage of Discovery, etc. London, 1821. Vol. I, p. 282 and Vol. 

 ni, p. 44, note. W. H. Emory, U. S. and Mexican Boundary Survey, Vol. i, p. ill, 

 says : ' The Yumas played a game with sticks like jackstraws." Stanley, Smith- 

 sonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. rr, p. 55, gives among his "Portraits of 

 North American Indians," a picture of a game which 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 for game." 



76 League of the Iroquois, p. 300. "Margry, Decouvertes, etc., Vol. 4, p. 261. 



ESSEX INST. BULLETIN, VOL. XVII. 16 



