cunt] DICE GAMES: MICMAC ard 
The name wobindrunk is derived from wobun, meaning dawn; to which is 
added a termination signifying anything molded or worked upon by human 
hands.¢ 
The outfit for the game consists simply of six dice, made from moose or 
caribou bone. One Micmac, at least, is positive that 
the teeth only of these animals can properly be used. 
In playing, these dice are thrown from the right hand 
upon the ground, and the points are counted accord- 
ing to the number of marked or unmarked faces which 
fall uppermost. It is customary for a player to pass his 
hand quickly over the dice, if possible, after he has 
tossed them and before they reach the ground, in order 
to secure good luck. The shape of the dice is that of 
a decidedly flattened hemisphere, the curved portion 
Fic. 65—Bone die; diame- 
being unmarked. The base or flat surface is about the ter 1} inches; Micmac In- 
size of a 25-cent piece and presents three figures (fig- dians, as Scotia; oie 
er . . : a in y Stansbur, 
ure 65). Close to its edge there is a circle, touched at nee BY y 
four points by a series of looped curves, which form a 
kind of cross. Within each of the four spaces thus separated is an equal-armed 
cross composed of nine dots, which, with the dot in the center of the die, make 
a total of 87 dots upon each piece, or of 222 dots (37 by 6) used in the game. 
/ The count is as follows: If six marked faces fall face 
up, it counts 50 points; if five marked faces fall face up, 5; 
if four marked faces fall face up, 4; if three marked faces 
fall face up, 8; if two marked faces fall face up, 2; if one 
marked face falls face up, 1; if six unmarked faces fall 
face up, 5; total, seven counts and 70 points. 
The marks on the Micmac dice are similar to 
ee those on some of the inscribed shell beads, known as 
shell bead (runtee); runtees, found in the state of New York. One of 
Alen ei these (figure 66), reproduced from Prof. W. H. 
j Holmes’s Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans,” is 
from an ancient village site at Pompey, which Rev. W. M. Beau- 
champ, of Baldwinsville, New York, attributes to the seventeenth 
century. Mr Beauchamp writes me that both sides are alike, and that 
it is pierced with two holes from edge to edge. 
Micmac. Digby, Nova Scotia. (Cat. no. 21642, Free Museum of 
Science and Art, University of Pennsylvania.) 
Set of implements for the game of altestaan, the dice game, con- 
sisting of six bone dice, marked on the flat sides as shown in 
figure 67 and contained in a small velvet bag; a flat wooden dish 
(figure 68), 104 inches in diameter, marked with incised lines on 
“From the fact that white shell beads (wampum) are constantly referred to as being 
used as stakes, not only among the tribes of the Atlantic coast, but in the Southwest (see 
Cushing’s account of the white shell beads used in sholiwe), the writer is inclined to 
believe that the name of this same wobindirunk is derived from the use of wampum 
(wobun, white, so called from the white beads) as stakes for which it was played. 
Again, it may refer to the white disks; but, however this may be, a peculiar significance 
is attached to the use of shell beads as gambling counters or stakes. 
>Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pl. XXxvI, fig, 4, 1583. 
