CULIN] DICE GAMES: SENECA 1G 
beans, from which stock seven are taken by each of the men who act as callers. 
When everything is ready the arrangement is as shown in the diagram [figure 
119], the players invariably sitting east and west. 
Before the game is begun all present are exhorted by the speaker to keep 
their temper, to do everything fairly, and to show no jealousy, “ because,” says 
he, “the side that loses this time may be favored by Niyoh the next time, and 
it will displease him should there be any bad feeling.” 
The first player takes the bowl by the edge with both hands and after a few 
preliminary shakes in midair he strikes the bottom sharply on the floor, when 
the peach stones rebound and fall back within the dish. 
Winning throws are of four kinds: All white, all black, one white, or one 
black. All black or white means that the woman representing the winner 
receives from him who represents the loser 5 beans, but when only one white or 
one black bean shows face up, 1 bean is the gain. If, however, any player 
makes three successive casts, winning 5 each time, he is allowed 15 additional 
beans, and similarly, after 
three successive casts will- [WINNING THROWS 
ning 1 each, he is allowed 
83 more beans. 
As long as a player makes 
winning throws he keeps his 
place, which when he leaves 
is immediately taken by an- 
other—man or woman. In 
this way the game is con- 
tinued until one side wins 
all the beans, and this may WOMAN X BEANS X WOMAN 
require only an hour or two, man Oo X man 
or it may take two or three 
days. 
While the play is going 
on it is not to be understood that the onlookers exemplify what is known as 
Indian stoicism. Anything but this. Excitement runs unusually high. Those 
on the side of the player for the time being encourage him with enthusias- 
tically uproarious shouts of “ jagon! jagon! jagon!” “ play! play!” or “go on! 
go on! go on!” while the opponents yell with a sort of tremulous derisiveness 
“hee-aih! hee-aih!* Nor is this all, for those on the opposing side make faces 
and grimaces at each other and give utterance to all sorts of ridiculous and 
absurd things, hoping thus to distract the attention of their rivals, to discourage 
them, or in some other way to induce loss. : 
When all the beans have been won, the ceremonial game is at an end and the 
stakes are divided, each better getting his own article along with the one 
attached to it. 
Similar games may be played afterward 
people please. 
The peach-stone game is one of the most popular gambling exercises on the 
Reserve and is often played among friends in each other’s houses. The pagans 
religiously abstain from card playing in accordance, it may be remembered, 
with the injunctions of Hoh-shah-honh and Sosé-a-wa, the immediate successors 
of Ska-ne-o-dy’-o, both of whom taught that, as this was a white man’s device, it 
must be shunned. 
PLAYER X fe) X PLAYER 
F1G. 119. Position of players in bowl game; Seneca Indians, 
Ontario; from Boyle. 
just for fun,” as often as the 
*Mr Boyle writes: ** The description of the peach-stone game applies to the method of 
playing by all the pagan nations—Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga, although the Seneca 
are referred to in my report. As the Oneida and Tuscarora are professedly Christian, 
the game is not indulged in by them.” 
