INDIAN GAMES. 177 



lated into French and afterwards published at Amsterdam 

 and at Orleans. He says the natives engaged in "certain 

 violent plays, which they enjoy much and in which they 

 run and leap upon each other." 



"There is one in particular, which pleases them much, 

 and in which they take haudfuls of sticks, or pieces of 

 stiff straw, which they count as quickly as the eye can 

 move, with marvellous dexterity." Beverley seems to have 

 comprehended the fact that the separation of the straws 

 into piles was connected with the process of counting, but 

 he has not ventured to describe the details of the game. 19 



It is easy to recognize in these various descriptions, 

 the game which the French writers invariably call "Pailles", 

 and it is curious to note that the features of the game which 

 evidently made the most vivid impression upon these au- 

 thors were described in substantially the same language 

 by other writers, in separate localities and at different pe- 

 riods of time. We have a new authority for the statement 

 that the game is a "kind of Arithmatick", a fresh compar- 

 ison with cards, 20 and additional testimony to the marvel- 

 lous rapidity with which the players counted. 



CHUNKEE OR HOOP AND POLE. 



Laudonniere, 21 describes a curious alley near an Indian 

 village which was found by a French expedition, in the 

 middle of the sixteenth century. He says : "There is at 

 the coming forth of the village a great alley about three 



19 I am indebted to Dr. Trumbull for information that a MS. Illinois Dictionary 

 (probably compiled by Gravier, about 1700) gives many of the terms used in the 

 games of straws and dice. 



In his edition of Koger Williams' Key he has pointed out that the literal meaning 

 of the Massachusetts and Nan ag;m sett word " ak^suog " for playing " at cards or 

 telling of rushes" is ''they are counting." 



In the Illustrated Catalogue of the Smithsonian Collection from the Pueblos, 

 No. 69, 340, is given to "Wooden cards for betting game." 



"'Hakluyt'a Collection of Early Voyages, Vol. ill, p. 415. 



