138 INDIAN GAMES. 



The picturesque description of Gushing brings before 

 our eyes the guessing game in its highest form of de- 

 velopment. Among the tribes of the East, if it had a home 

 at all, it was practised in such an inobtrusive way as not 

 to attract the attention of writers who have described 

 their habits and customs. The nearest approach to it 

 which we can find is a guessing game described by Henne- 

 pin, as follows: "They take kernels of Indian corn or 

 something of the kind, then they put some in one hand, 

 and ask how many there are. The one who guesses wins." 



Mackenzie 141 fell in with some Indians near the Pacific 

 coast who travelled with him a short distance. They 

 carried with them the implements for gambling. Their 

 game was different from the guessing games which have 

 been heretofore described. "There were two players and 

 each had a bundle of about fifty small sticks neatly pol- 

 ished, of the size of a quill, and five inches long. A cer- 

 tain number of their sticks had red lines round them and 

 as many of these as one of the players might find con- 

 venient were curiously rolled up in dried grass, and ac- 

 cording to the judgment of his antagonist respecting 

 their number and marks he lost or won." 



The same game was seen at Queen Charlotte Islands by 

 Francis Poole. 142 He says there were in this game 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 beautifully polished." These pins were 

 divided into two heaps under cover of bark fibre and the 

 opposite player guessed odd or even for one of the piles. 



CONTESTS OF SKILL. 



Lewis and Clarke 143 describe a game among the Ore- 

 gon Indians which can neither be called an athletic game 



Alexander Mackenzie's Voyages in 1789 and 1793. London, 1801, p. 311. 

 * 42 Queen Charlotte Islands, a narrative, etc., p. 325. 3 Vol. n, p. 140. 



