INDIAN GAMES. 183 



rounded and polished. They were put under a heap of 

 bark-fibre, were separated into two piles, wrapped in bark 

 and shifted from hand to hand while still beneath the pile 

 of bark-fibre. They were then exposed in their bark 

 wrappings for the guesser to make his choice. 



According to Swan's observations, the Indians north of 

 Vancouver's Island use this style of sticks for gambling. 

 On the other hand, George Gibbs,* 2 speaking of the Indians 

 of western Washington and northwestern Oregon, says : 

 "farther down the coast ten highly polished sticks are used 

 instead of disks." 



Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull kindly pointed out to me that 

 information concerning Indian games could be obtained 

 from Indian Dictionaries and Vocabularies. In the Ab- 

 nakis Dictionary of Father Easles 33 a game is mentioned, 

 which is described as played upon des espece de lozanges 

 entrelassees, by which is meant, I presume, interlaced loz- 

 enges. The statement that the grains bet upon the game 

 were placed upon the interlaced lozenges would seem to 

 show that the game was played upon a prepared surface 

 with a pattern of this description upon it. As there is no 

 further account of the game, no conclusion can be drawn 

 as to how it was played. Rasles calls another game 

 "chariot" and says the one who makes chariot does not 

 take the grains. The only description given of this game, 

 trains qui roule is too brief to suggest any idea of the 

 method of the play. 



In some of the Western dialects, Dr. Trumbull finds 

 mention of " a game of wheels or roulette," and he has fur- 

 nished me some references taken from the Kalispel (Flat- 



11 U. S. G. & G. Survey. Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. I, 

 p. 206. 



88 The dictionary of Rasles, Rasle, Rale or Ralle for the name is spelt in each of 

 these ways by different authors was printed in Vol. I, N. S. Memoirs of the 

 American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Cambridge, 1833. The original MS. is 

 in the Harvard College Library- 



