CULIN] DICE GAMES: CHIPPEWA 61 
Besides taking part in the round games of the men, the women have games 
of their own which I have never seen played by men. The most common is 
called the plum-stone game, and is played by the women and children of nearly 
all the plains tribes. The stone of the wild plum is polished and the flatter 
sides are cut or scraped off, making them more flat. Some of these faces are 
then marked with different hieroglyphics, varying with the tribe, and some are 
left blank. The game is played with eight such pieces, which are shaken 
together in a little bowl or a tin cup and then thrown on a blanket. It is 
really nothing but our game of dice, complicated, however, by a system of 
counting so curious and arbitrary that it is almost impossible for a white man 
to learn it. Every possible combination of the hieroglyphics and blanks on 
the eight stones gives a different count. This varies with the tribe. Among 
the Cheyenne the highest possible throw is 200, the lowest 0. The game is 
usually 2,000, though this varies greatly. Each player, having the gambler’s 
superstition as to what is her lucky number, tries to fix the game at that number. 
If the stakes are yaluable, the number fixed for the game is generally a com- 
promise. In some tribes a certain combination of the stones wins and another 
combination loses the game, even though it be made on the first throw. 
CHEYENNE. Cheyenne reservation, Montana. (Cat. no. 69689, Field 
Columbian Museum. ) 
oO GOeOS 
Fig. 35. Plum-stone dice; Cheyenne Indians, Montana; cat. no. 69689, Field Columbian Museum. 
© 
Implements for women’s dice game. Plum-stone dice (figure 35) in 
sets of three alike, with burnt designs on one side; accompanied 
by a small basket of twined grass, and counting sticks made of 
stalks of rushes, about 8 inches in length, dyed yellow, green, 
red, and blue, each player having six of the same color. Col- 
lected by Mr S. C. Simms in 1901. 
Curerewa. Bois fort. Near Rainy river, Minnesota. (Cat. no. 3°, 
American Museum of Natural History.) 
Four flat sticks (figure 36), 154 inches long, burned black on both 
sides and marked alike in pairs with crosses and cut lines on 
one face. 
Fig. 36. Stick dice; length, 15; inches; Chippewa Indians, Bois fort, Minnesota; cat. no. 7295, 
American Museum of Natural History. 
They were collected in 1903 by Dr William Jones, who gives the 
following counts: 
Four points on a flush; 4 points on a cross and striped flush; 2 points on a 
pair of striped sticks; 20 points on sticks with medial band and  x’s. 
