cuLin] . STICK GAMES: THOMPSON INDIANS 955 
carved or painted, some of them with pictures of animals or birds of which their 
posssessors had dreamed. Each man had his own sticks and carried them in a 
buckskin bag. Two of the sticks were marked with buckskin or sinew thread 
or with a painted ring around the middle. I do not know exactly the points 
which each stick won. The players kneeled opposite each other, and each 
spread out in front of him his gambling mat [figure 335], which was made of 
deerskin. Each had a bundle of dry grass. The man who played first took one 
of the sticks with the ring, and another one, generally one representative of his 
guardian spirit, or some other which he thought lucky, and put them on his mat 
so that the other player could see them. Then he took them to the neat end of 
FiG. 334. Stick game; length of stick¢, 5yy inches; Thompson Indians, British Columbia; cat no, 
zass, American Museum of Natural History. aand /,ska’kalamux, man; b, screw of ramrod; 
c, snake; d, wolf; e, otter; g, eagle; h, grizzly bear; i-u, without names: v, one of fifteen sticks, 
without marks. 
Fie. 335. Gambling mat for stick game; length, 31 inches; Thompson Indians, British Columbia; 
cat no. ;#£;, American Museum of Natural History. 
Fic. 336. Pointer for stick game, representing a crane; length, 26 inches; Thompson Indians. 
British Columbia: cat no. ;33-, American Museum of Natural History. 
the mat, where his knee was, and where the other man could not see them, and 
rolled each stick up in dry grass until it was completely covered. Then he 
placed the grass-covered sticks down on the mat again. The other man then 
took his pointer [figure 336] and, after tapping each of the grass-covered sticks 
four times with it, moved them around with his pointer four times, following 
the sun’s course. Then he separated one from the other by pushing it with his 
pointer to the edge of the mat. Then the other man took up this stick and. 
drawing it back and loosening the grass around it, shoved it back into the center 
of his set of sticks. Then he took up his sticks and, after shaking them loosely 
in his hands near his ear, threw them down on the mat, one after another. 
