cULIN] DICE GAMES: ESKIMO 1038 
quently played. A set of about fifteen figures, like those represented in figure 
522, belong to this game; some representing birds, others men and women. The 
players sit around a board or piece of leather and the figures are shaken in the 
hand and thrown upward. On falling, some stand upright, others lie flat on 
the back or on the side. Those standing upright belong to that player whom 
Fig. 112. Game of ‘‘fox and geese,” Yuit Eskim», Plover bay, Siberia; from Murdoch. 
they face; sometimes they are so thrown that they all belong to the one that 
tossed them up. The players throw by turns until the last figure is taken up, 
the one getting the greatest number of figures being the winner. 
Mr John Murdoch® describes similar objects which he purchased 
at Plover bay, eastern Siberia, in 1881 (figure 112). They were sup- 
posed to be merely works of art. Referring to the account given by 
Doctor Boas of their use as a game, he says: 
It is therefore quite likely they were used for a similar purpose at Plover 
bay. If this be so, it is a remark- 
able point of similarity between these 
widely separated Eskimos, for I can 
learn nothing of a similar custom at 
any intermediate point. 
In the United States National 
Museum (cat. no. 63457) there 
Is a set of carved water birds Fia. 113. Ivory water birds and seal; Western 
and a seal (figure 113) collected — Eskimo, St Lawrence island, Alaska: cat. no. 
from the Eskimo at St Law- 63457, United States National Museum. 
rence island, Alaska, by Mr E. W. Nelson, in 1882. He informs me, 
through Prof. Otis T. Mason, that he never saw the flat-bottomed 
geese and other creatures used in a game, and all of his specimens 
are perforated and used as pendants on the bottom of personal orna- 
ments and parts of clothing. 
Prof. Benjamin Sharp, of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 
Philadelphia, tells me that he saw the carved water birds used as a 
game, being tossed and allowed to fall by Eskimo at St Lawrence 
bay, Siberia. 
* Bthnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition. Ninth Annual Report of the 
Bureau of Ethnology, p. 364, 1892. 
