216 GAMES OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS  [eru. ann. 24 
at night the players gathered to divine. To the middle of the ceiling was sus- 
pended a jical or large round bowl-basket, over which a deerskin was stretched 
like a drumhead. Immediately below this, spread over a sacred diagram of 
prayer meal representing the terrace or cloud bed of the four quarters, on the 
floor, was a buffalo robe, pelt side up, head to the east, left side to the north, 
ete. [figure 292]. Upon this pelt a broken circle was traced either in black 
lines or dots, and with or without grains of corn (forty for each line, the colors 
corresponding to the quarters as above described), and the openings (canyons or 
passageways) occurring at the four points opposite the four directions. It 
should be observed that a cross 
(+) was sometimes painted 
both on the center of the skin 
on the basket drum and on the 
hide beneath, the upper sym- 
bolic of Ahaiyuta, and the 
eg lower of Matsailema, the Twin 
War Gods. 
The four players chose their 
places according to the clan 
groups and directions or quar- 
ters they represented: the 
Ss player of the North between the 
Fic. 292. Hide gaming circuit for cane dice; Zuni eastern and northern passage- 
Indians, Zuni, New Mexico; from sketch by Frank Way; the player of the West 
Hamilton Cushing. between the northern and west- 
ern passageway, and so on. 
The players of the Hast and North represented war, and in other modes of the 
game, masculinity; those of the West and South, peace and femininity. 
Before taking their places they muttered prayers, or rather rituals, clasp- 
ing the playing canes lengthwise between the palms, breathing deeply from, and 
from the close of the prayers, repeatedly upon them, rubbing and shuffling them 
vigorously, from which comes the title of a skilled player or a gambler, shos’-li, 
cane rubber, or cane shuffler. As they took their seats, each placed under 
the edge of the buffalo hide in front of his place the pool, consisting of sacred 
white shell beads, or of little 
tablets representative of va- 
rious properties and thus 
forming a kind of currency, 
since these little symbols 
were redeemable in the prop- 
erties they represented or in 
commodities of equa] value 
by agreement. Each also 
laid down at his right side 
on the edge of the robe over Fig. 293. Manner of holding cane dice in game of sholiwe; 
Zuni Indians, Zuni, New Mexico; from sketch by 
Frank Hamilton Cushing. 
the pool two kinds of count- 
ers, usually a set of count- 
ing straws of broom grass, about six or seven inches long, worn by much use, 
and varying in number according to the proposed game. From ten to forty or 
forty-two, or from one hundred to one hundred and two, this latter number 
divided at random into four bundles, was selected by each player. The addi- 
tional counters were supplied by beans or corn grains, each set, or the set of 
each player, being of his appropriate color. Four splints, the moving pieces of 
the game, were laid in their places by the left sides of the passageways, 
