176 INDIAN GAMES. 



sist in gambling for the possession of the property of the 

 defunct." This paper is illustrated with a picture of the 

 game of plum-stones. Illustrations, showing the marks 

 on the plum-stones and the winning throws, are also given. 



STRAW OR INDIAN CARDS. 



The first game described by Roger Williams in his 

 Chapter on Gaming 15 is " A Game like unto the English 

 Cards, yet, instead of Cards, they play with strong 

 Rushes." In his vocabulary he gives "Ak6suog: they 

 are at cards, or telling of Rushes ; Pissinn6ganash : their 

 playing Rushes ; Ntakesemin : I am a telling, or count- 

 ing; for their play is a kind of Arithmatick." Dr. Trum- 

 bull calls attention in a note, in his edition, to the fact 

 that Rasle gives as a meaning for the word which in his 

 vocabulary corresponds to Pissinneganash, " les pailles 

 avec quoi on joue." 



Strachey 16 found this game among the Indians in Vir- 

 ginia. He describes it as follows : "Dice play, or cardes, 

 or lotts, they know not, how be it they use a game upon 

 rushes much like primero, 17 wherein they card and dis- 

 card and lay a stake or two, and so win and loose. They 

 will play at this for their bowes and arrowes, their copper 

 beads, hatchets, and their leather coats." 



Robert Beverley , 18 a native of Virginia, published anony- 

 mously, in 1705, a History of Virginia, which was traus- 



15 Chapter xxvui, of the Key to the Language of America. 

 "Straehey's Book of Travaile, p. 65. 



17 frimero is described in Strutt, p. 433, as "among the most ancient games of 

 cards known to have been played in England." It is useless to attempt to derive 

 any information as to the game "upon russhes" from Strutt's rules for Primero. 

 The "card and discard" upon which Strachey perhaps predicated the similarity of 

 the games, evidently referred to the system of counting followed in the game of 

 " straws," in which the players told off the straws in bundles of ten. 



18 The edition which I have consulted was a French translation : Histoire de la 

 Virginie, etc., parD. S. Natifet Habitant du Pays. Traduitde_l'Angloisetenrichie 

 de figures. Amsterdam, 1712. See p. 302. 



