INTRODUCTION 
The games of the American Indians may be divided into two gen- 
eral classes: I, games of chance; II, games of dexterity. Games of 
pure skill and calculation, such as chess, are entirely absent. The 
Indian games of chance fall into two categories: 1, games in which 
implements of the nature of dice are thrown at random to determine 
a number or numbers, and the sum of the counts is kept by means of 
sticks, pebbles, etc., or upon an abacus, or counting board, or circuit ; 
2, games in which one or more of the players guess in which of two 
or more places an odd or particularly marked lot is concealed, success 
or failure resulting in the gain or loss of counters. The games of 
dexterity may be enumerated as: 1, archery in various modifications ; 
2, a game of sliding javelins or darts upon the hard ground or ice; 
5, a game of shooting at a moving target consisting of a netted wheel 
or a ring; 4, the game of ball in several highly specialized forms; 
5, the racing games, more or less related to and complicated with the 
ball games. In addition, there is a subclass related to the games of 
shooting at a moving target, of which it is a miniature and solitaire 
form, corresponding to the European game of cup and ball. 
Games of all the classes designated are found among all the Indian 
tribes of North America and constitute the games par excellence of 
the Indians. Children have a variety of other amusements, such as 
top spinning, mimic fights, and similar imitative sports, but the 
games first described are played only by men and women, or youths 
and maidens, not by children, and usually at fixed seasons as the 
accompaniment of certain festivals or religious rites. 
| There is a well-marked affinity and relationship existing between 
the manifestations of the same game, even among the most widely 
separated tribes. The variations are more in the materials employed, 
due to environment, than in the object or method of play. Precisely 
the same games are played by tribes belonging to unrelated linguistic 
stocks, and in general the variations do not follow differences in 
language. At the same time, there appears to be a progressive change 
from what seems to be the oldest forms of existing games from a 
center in the southwestern United States, along lines north, north- 
east, and east. Similar changes probably occurred along lines radi- 
ating from the same center southward into Mexico, but in the absence 
of sufficient data this conclusion can not be verified. 
