CULIN] DICE GAMES: CHEYENNE 59 
21 inches deep (figure 32). Both sides of the bottom are covered 
with cotton cloth. Played by women. Collected by Mr James 
Mooney in 1891. 
Dr George Bird Grinnell furnished the writer the following account 
of the Cheyenne basket game, which he describes under the name of 
monshimout : 
The Cheyenne seed or basket game is played with a shallow bowl and five 
plum stones. The bowl is from 3 to 4 inches deep, 8 inches across at the top, 
flattened or not on the bottom, and woven of grass or strips of willow twigs. 
It is nearly one-half inch thick and is strong. All five seeds are unmarked on 
one side, but on the other side [figure 33] three are marked with a figure 
representing the paint patterns often used by girls on their faces, the cross being 
on the bridge of the nose, the side marks on the cheeks, and the upper and 
lower ones on the forehead and chin, respectively. The other two stones are 
marked with a figure representing the foot of a bear.¢ 
These plum stones are placed in the basket [figure 34], thrown up and caught 
in it, and the combination of the sides which lie uppermost after they have fallen 
determines the count of the throw. 
Fig. 31 Fig. 32. 
FiGc.3l. Bone dice; lengths, 1} and j inches; Cheyenne Indians, Oklahoma; cat. no. 152803, 
United States National Museum. 
Fic. 32. Basket for dice; diameter at top, 8} inches; Cheyenne Indians, Oklahoma; cat. no. 
152803, United States National Museum. 
The players sit opposite one another, if several are playing, in two rows facing 
each other. Each individual bets with the woman opposite to her. Fach player 
is provided with eight sticks, which represent the points which she must gain or 
lose to win or lose the game. When a player has won all the sticks belonging to 
her opponent she has won the game and the stake. 
There are several combinations of marks and blanks which count nothing for 
or against the player making the throw, except that she loses her chance to 
make another throw. Others entitle the thrower to receive one, three, or even 
all eight sticks, and each throw that counts anything entitles the player to 
another throw. All the players on the side of the thrower—that is, in the same 
row—win or lose from those opposite them as the thrower wins or loses. If 
the person making the first throw casts a blank, she passes the basket to the one 
sitting next her; if this one makes a throw that counts, she has another and 
another, until she throws a blank, when the basket passes on. When the basket 
reaches the end of the line, it is handed across to the woman at the end of the 
opposite row, and in the same way travels down the opposite line. 
In making the throw the basket is raised only a little way, and the stones 
tossed only a few inches high. Before they fall the basket is brought smartly 
down to the ground, against which it strikes with some little noise. Some of 
“Mr Cushing identified the mark of the cross with a star and the other with a bear's 
track, referring, respectively, to the sky and earth, 
