DENSMORE] CHIPPEWA MUSIC II 207 



been entirely torn from him. He had lost everything — his family, his strength, his 

 tattered raiment; at length life itself departed. 



As he lay dead he heard some one coming toward him, stamping heavily on the 

 earth. With returning consciousness he saw a man standing before him. The 

 stranger was dressed all in black , even to his mittens. The stranger (who was a manido^) 

 spoke, saying, "Brother, why do you lie here? " He who had been dead then rose to a 

 sitting posture. The stranger said, "Brother, let us gamble." The man answered, 

 "Very well," though he did not know what game was to be played. The stranger, 

 seating himself opposite the man, took a skunk-skin bag from his hip pocket. In this 

 were a piece of flint and a small screw-shaped piece of metal used in removing the wad 

 from a gun.' The stranger tossed the flint to the man, saying, "You may use this;" 

 he himself used the piece of metal. 



The stranger showed the man how to play the hand game. Laying his coat across 

 his knees, he concealed his hands beneath it; in one hand was the metal object. He 

 then passed his closed hands rapidly before his opponent. Skill in the game con- 

 sisted in transferring this from one hand to the other while both were closely watched 

 by the opponent, who attempted to guess in which hand the object was concealed. 

 The man who had been dead won the game from the stranger, although it had just 

 been taught him.^ 



The stranger, though defeated by the man who had been dead, asked him to try 

 another kind of game. The stranger then took off his moccasins, and, laying them 

 on the ground, taught the man to play the moccasin game exactly as it is played by 

 the Chippewa at the present time.^ At this, as well as at the first game, the man 

 who had been dead was victorious. 



Then the stranger took from his belt a small shallow wooden plate, which hung 

 there by a cord, and from his tobacco bag some tiny figures made of bone. Placing 

 these figures in the plate, he showed the man how to toss them in the air afid note 

 their positions as they fell. The former dead man was winner in this game also.* 



After being defeated at the plate game the mysterious stranger rose and said to his 

 opponent: "Brother, we will part now. Look, yonder is an Indian village. Go 

 there and gamble as I have taught you. I will now tell you who I am. Watch 

 me as I depart." 



The man looked up and saw a large black bear walking away from him. The 

 bear turned and said, "Brother, do you know me?" and the man answered, "Yes, 

 I know now who you are." 



The man then went to the Indian village and began to gamble. According to 

 E^niwub^e ' ' the man won back his dead — that is, two women and four children 

 were staked on the game, and he won; so he felt as though he had the same ones 

 back again." 



1 These spiral pieces of metal, ending in a sharp point, called "gun worms," were secured from traders at 

 an early day. 



2 The hand game is probably the oldest and most widely distributed of Indian games. Culin states 

 (in Tivcnty-fourfh Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethn., p. 267) that the game has been found among 81 tribes, 

 belonging to 28 linguistic stocks, adding : "This extensive distribution may be partially accounted for 

 by the fact that, as it was played entirely by gesture, the game could be carried on between individuals 

 who had only the sign language in common." 



According to E'niwiib'e, the hand game, taught by the manido', soon came into general use among 

 the Chippewa. The numerous players were seated in two long rows facing each other, while the pile of 

 wagered articles, placed between them, was often so high that the opposing players could scarcely look 

 over it. The spectators danced around the players, singing the hand game songs. 



3 Ibid., pp. 340-342. 



* According to Culin, a game or games of this type exist "among 130 tribes, belonging to 30 linguistic 

 stocks, and from no one tribe does it appear to have been absent. " (Ibid., p. 45.) The plate game among 

 the Chippewa received attention from Schoolcraft (see Oneo'ta, or Characteristics of the Red Race of 

 America, New York, 1845, p. 85), whose description of the game and its implements corresponds with 

 observations made by the writer on the Leecli Lajce Reservation, in Minnesota, in 1910. 



