cULIN] DICE GAMES: TIGUA 191 
Mr Charles F. Lummis® gives the following account of the game 
in Isleta: 
The boys gather forty smooth stones, the size of the fist, and arrange them 
in a circle about 3 feet in diameter. Between every tenth and eleventh stone 
is a gate of 4 or 5 inches. These gates are 
ealled p’fy-hlah rivers. In the center of the 
circle, pa-t6l niht-heh, pa-tol house, is placed a 
large cobblestone, smooth and approximately 
flat on top, ealled hyee-oh-tee-Ay. There is 
your pa-tol ground. 
The pa-tol sticks, which are the most im- 
portant part of the paraphernalia, are three 
in number. Sometimes they are made by & ae é— 
splitting from dry branches, and sometimes by yg. 250. Stickdice; length, 4} inches: 
whittling from a solid block. The chief essen- Tigua Indians, Isleta, New Mexico; 
tial is that the wood be firm and hard. The ®t. no. 22726, Free Museum of Sci- 
sticks are 4 to 5 inches long, about an inch area pausuersity of Benn: 
wide, and a quarter of an inch thick, and must 
have their sides flat, so that the three may be clasped together very much as one 
holds a pen, but more nearly perpendicular, with the thumb and first three fin- 
gers of the right hand. Bach stick is plain on one side and marked on the other, 
generally with diagonal notches, as shown in figure [251]. 
The only other requisite is a kah-nid-deh, horse, for each player, of whom 
there may be as many as can seat themselves around the pa-tol house. The 
horse is merely a twig or stick used as a marker. When the players have 
seated themselves, the first takes the pa-tol sticks tightly in his right hand, 
lifts them about as high as his chin, and, bringing them down 
NUK 2 with a smart vertical thrust, as if to harpoon the center stone, 
lets go of them when they are within some 6 inches of it. The 
NING 3 three sticks strike the stone as one, hitting on their ends 
squarely, and, rebounding several inches, fall back into the cir- 
NING 5 cle. The manner in which they fall decides the denomination 
of the throw, and the different values are shown in figure [251]. 
HOR» Although at first flush this might seem to make it a game of 
RNB» chance, nothing could be farther from the truth. Indeed, no 
really aboriginal game is a true game of chance; the invention 
of that dangerous and delusive plaything was reserved for 
in stick dice; seine . A 
Iie na indians’ civilized ingenuity. 
Isleta, New An expert pa-tol player will throw the number he desires 
Mexico; from with almost unfailing certainty by his arrangement of the sticks 
Lummis. in his hand and the manner and force with which he strikes 
them down. It is a dexterity which anyone may acquire by sufficient practice, 
and only thus. The five throw is deemed very much the hardest of all, and I 
have certainly found it so. 
According to the number of his throw the player moves his marker an equal 
number of stones ahead on the circle, using one of the rivers as a starting 
point. If the throw is five, for instance, he lays his horse between the fourth 
and fifth stones, and hands the pa-tol sticks to the next man. If his throw be 
ten, however, as the first man’s first throw is very certain to be, it lands his 
horse in the second river, and he has another throw. The second man may 
make his starting point the same or another river, and may elect to run his 
Fig.251. Counts 
«A New Mexico David, p. 184, New York, 1891. 
