CULIN] STICK GAMES: SNOHOMISH 253 
4 inches long and painted with various marks. There are two players to the 
game, who sit opposite each other. <A fisher-skin, which is nicely painted, is 
placed between them, bent in such a way as to present two faces, slanting down 
toward the players. Each of these takes a number of sticks, which he covers 
with hay, shakes, and throws down, one after the other, on his side of the skin. 
The player who throws down the stick bearing a certain mark has lost. 
Sxoxomisu. Washington. (Cat. no. 19648, Field Columbian Mu- 
seum. ) 
Set of ten wooden disks, 2 inches in diameter and one-fourth of an 
inch thick, periphery well rounded and sides concave, colored 
light red; accompanied by a rough split cedar board, 3 by 10 
inches, three-sixteenths of an inch thick, said to go with the 
game. 
Collected by Rev. Myron Eells. 
Snonomisy (7). Tulalip agency, Washington. (Cat. no. 130981, 
United States National Museum.) 
One hundred and thirty-two wooden disks, part of twenty-three sets. 
Collected by Mr E. C. Cherouse, United States Indian agent, 
1875. 
The number of sets may be somewhat less than this, owing to some 
of the pieces, although bearing different marks, having been com- 
bined for use. 
The different sets are distinguished by a variety of marks, some of 
which are so minute as to escape all but careful examination. These 
marks consist chiefly of minute holes, like pin holes, in ones, twos, 
and threes, variously arranged on the faces of the disks. Some sets 
have raised rims, with a line of nicks on each face next to the edge; 
others are painted with a dark ring near the edge. The edges are 
either blackened or painted red the entire distance around, or are per- 
fectly plain, or part plain and part blackened, this last kind prepon- 
derating. There are but two complete sets of ten disks each in the lot. 
The disks vary from 17 to 24 inches in diameter, those in each set 
being perfectly uniform and appearing to be cut from the same piece 
of wood. 
The collector gave the following account of the game: 
The present casters or trundles are made of a shrub that grows in rich bottom 
lands and is called by the Indians set-ta-chas. The shrub is the genus Vibur- 
num, and I would call it the wild snowball tree. They boil the trundles during 
three or four hours, and when dried they scrape them with shave grass until 
they are well shaped, polished, and naturally colored. The common set for a 
game of two gamblers is twenty apiece. Two of the casters are called chiefs 
and are edged with black or white, and the others are slaves, or servants. Fine 
mats are expanded on a level place and fixed to the ground by pins made for 
that purpose. The two antagonists, surrounded by their respective partners, sit 
on the ends of the mat, leaving a free space between. Each one keeps his 
easters hidden under two handfuls of stlowi, or dressed bark, the partners sing- 
“It is net possible to determine the tribe exactly. 
