110 GAMES OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS | [ETH. Ann. 24 
It is beyond my power to picture the diligence and activity of our barbarians 
in preparing themselves and in seeking all the means and omens for good luck 
and success in their game. They assemble at night and spend the time partly in 
shaking the dish and ascertaining who has the best hand, partly in displaying 
their charms and exhorting them. Toward the end they lie down to sleep in the 
same cabin, having previously fasted, and for some time abstained from their 
wives, and all this to have some favorable dream; in the morning, they have to 
relate what happened during the night. 
Finally, they collect all the things which they have dreamed can bring good 
luck, and fill pouches with them in order to carry them. They search every- 
where, besides, for those who have charms suitable to the game, or ascwandics or 
tamiliar demons, that these may assist the one who holds the dish, and be 
nearest to him when he shakes it. If there be some old men whose presence is 
regarded as efficacious in augmenting the strength and virtue of their charms, 
they are not satisfied to take the charms to them, but sometimes even to load 
these men themselves upon the shoulders of the young men, to be carried to the 
place of assembly, and inasmuch as we pass in the country for master sorcerers, 
they do not fail to admonish us to begin our prayers and to perform many cere- 
monies, in order to make them win. They have no sooner arrived at the appointed 
place than the two parties take their places on opposite sides of the cabin and 
fill it from top to bottom, above and below the andichons, which are sheets of 
bark making a sort of canopy for a bed, or shelter, which corresponds to that 
below, which rests upon the ground, upon which they sleep at night. It is placed 
upon poles laid and suspended the whole length of the cabin. The two players 
are in the middle, with their assistants, who hold the charms; each of those in 
the assembly bets against whatever other person he chooses, and the game 
begins. 
It is then every one begins to pray or mutter, I know not what words, with 
gestures and eager motions of the hands, eyes, and the whole face, all to attract 
to himself good luck and to exhort their demons to take courage and not let 
themselves be tormented. 
Some are deputed to utter execrations and to make precisely contrary 
gestures, with the purpose of driving ill luck back to the other side and of 
imparting fear to the demon of the opponents. 
This game was played several times this winter, all over the country; but I 
do not know how it has happened that the people of the villages where we have 
residences have always been unlucky to the last degree, and a certain village 
lost 80 porcelain collars,@ach of a thousand beads, which are in this country 
equal to what you would eall in France 50,000 pearls, or pistoles. But this is not 
all; for, hoping always to regain what they have once lost, they stake tobacco 
pouches, robes, shoes, and leggins, in a word, all they have. So that if ill luck 
attack them, as happened to these, they return home naked as the hand, having 
sometimes lost even their clouts. 
They do not go away, however, until the patient has thanked them for the 
health he has recovered through their help, always professing himself cured — 
at the end of all these fine ceremonies, although frequently he does not do this 
long afterward in this world. 
Mouawk. New York. 
Bruyas ¢ in his radical words of the Mohawk language, written in 
the latter part of the seventeenth century, gives under atnenha, 
@ Rey. Jacques Bruyas, Radices Verborum Iroguweorum, p. 387, New York, 1862. 
