CULIN ] DICE GAMES: WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE 8Y 
The playing sticks are about a foot in length, and are the halves of green sticks 
about 1 inch in diameter, the bark being left on the rounded side and the split 
surface marked across its face with charcoal bands about 1 inch wide. In 
throwing, the sticks are carefully held together in the hand, with the marked 
faces either in or out. They are hurled, ends down, the hand being released 
just before they strike, so that they are free to fall or bounce in any direction. 
The counts are as follows: One marked face up counts 2; two marked faces 
up, 3; three marked faces up, 5; three marked faces down, 10. 
If the player scores 10, she throws again; otherwise she passes the sticks to 
the next player. When a player makes 10, she always says yak! and strikes the 
center stone with the bunch of three play sticks sidewise before throwing them 
again. The number of players may be two, three, or four, the last-named num- 
Fic. 87. White Mountain Apache women playing stick dice (the sticks in midair); White river, 
Arizona; from photograph by Mr Albert B. Reagan. 
ber being usual. When four play, one sits behind each section of stones, facing 
the center. When more than two play, the two that face each other play as 
partners. In moving their counting-sticks, partners always move them in the 
same direction. The player of the east section and her partner, if.she has one. 
move around the circle toward the south, and the player of the north section 
moves around toward the west. 
If a player’s count terminates at, or moves past, a place occupied by an 
antagonist, she takes her opponent’s counting-stick and throws it back, and the 
latter must start again, losing all her counts. 
A game consists of three circuits, or 120 points. Each time a player makes a 
circuit she scores by placing a charcoal mark on a stone in her section. 
Vocabulary: Sét dilth’, the stick game; sét dilth’ bed’-den-kik, let us play the 
stick game; dik, the sticks used in the stick game; gin-alsh’na, the game is 
finished, won; gin-alsh-na She, I have the game. 
