32 GAMES OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS _ [ETH. ANN. 24 
There is no evidence that any of the games described were imported 
into America at any time either before or after the Conquest. On the 
other hand, they appear to be the direct and natural outgrowth of 
aboriginal institutions in America. They show no modifications due 
to white influence other than the decay which characterizes all Indian 
institutions under existing conditions. It is probable, however, that 
the wide dissemination of certain games—for example, the hand 
game—is of comparatively recent date, due to wider and less restricted 
intercourse through the abolition of tribal wars. Playing cards 
and, probably, the simple board game called by the English nine 
men’s morris are among the few games borrowed by the Indians from 
the whites. On the other hand, we have taken their lacrosse in the 
north and racket in the south, and the Mexicans on the Rio Grande 
play all the old Indian games under Spanish names. 
My first conclusions as to the interrelation and common origin of 
Indian games were based upon a comparative study of the stick-dice 
game, published in the report of the United States National Museum 
for 1896.7 I was then, in default of other data, inclined to view the 
question from its objective side and to explain the manifold inter- 
relationships of the dice games as due chiefly to the progressive modi- 
fications of the implements employed. This explanation, however, 
failed to account for the manifest relations which I afterward dis- 
covered between the dice game and most of the other games, as well 
as those which exist between the gaming implements and many cere- 
monial appliances, and I was led to the conclusion that behind both 
ceremonies and games there existed some widespread myth from 
which both derived their impulse. 
References to games are of common occurrence in the origin myths 
of various tribes. They usually consist of a description of a series 
of contests in which the demiurge, the first man, the culture hero, 
overcomes some opponent, a foe of the human race, by exercise of 
superior cunning, skill, or magic. Comparison of these myths not 
only reveal their practical unity, but disclose the primal gamblers 
as those curious children, the divine Twins, the miraculous offspring 
of the Sun, who are the principal personages in many Indian mytholo- 
gies. They live in the east and in the west; they rule night and 
day, winter and summer. They are the morning and evening stars. 
Their virgin mother, who appears also as their sister and their wife, 
is constantly spoken of as their grandmother, and is the Moon or 
the Earth, the Spider Woman, the embodiment of the feminine 
principle in nature. Always contending, they are the original 
patrons of play, and their games are the games now played by men. 
I shall reserve for another work the task of attempting to untwine the 
«Chess and Playing Cards. 
