258 GAMES OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS _ [erTH. ann. 24 
SHASTA. Siletz reservation, Oregon. (Cat. no. 332;, American Mu- 
seum of Natural History. 
Fourteen sticks (figure 339), 7 inches in length, two plain and twelve 
painted in the middle with a 
broad brown band and _ black 
——— bands outside. Collected in 
SE = 1903 by Dr Roland B. Dixon. 
SIOUAN STOCK 
Asstnrporn. Alberta. 
= a Rev. John Maclean® says the 
— oe ——  Stonies have the odd and even 
———_— game, which is played with small 
= SAK Ge Aor ojiuullls, 
a Concarer. North Carolina. 
Fic. 339. Stick game; length of sticks, 7 
inches; Shasta Indians, Oregon; cat. no. 
siiaz, American Museum of Natural His- 
tory. 
John Lawson ” says: 
The women were very busily engaged 
in gaming. The name or grounds of it I 
could not learn, though I looked on above two hours. Their arithmetic was 
kept with a heap of Indian grain. 
Elsewhere,’ presumably referring to the above game, he says: 
Their chiefest game is a sort of arithmetic, which is managed by a parcel of 
small split reeds, the thickness of a small bent; these are made very nicely 
so that they part, and are tractable in their hands. They are fifty-one in num- 
ber, their length about 7 inches; when they play they throw part of them to 
their antagonist; the cut is to discover, upon sight, how many you have, and 
what you throw to him that plays with you. Some are so expert at their num- 
bers that they will tell ten times together what they throw out of their hands. 
Although the whole play is carried on with the quickest motion it is possible to 
use, yet Some are so expert at this game as to win great Indian estates by this 
play. A good set of these reeds, fit to play withal, are valued and sold for a 
dressed doeskin. 
Daxota (Trron). South Dakota. 
Rey. J. Owen Dersey, in Games of Teton Dakota Children,’ de- 
scribes a game played by children or adults of either sex: 
Chin wiyushnan’pi, odd or even. Played at any time by two persons. A like 
number of green switches must be prepared by each player. Sumac sticks are 
generally chosen, as they are not easily broken by handling; hence one name for 
“ Counting-stick stalks.” One stick is made the odd one, prob- 
ably distinguished by some mark. When they begin, one of the players seizes 
all the sticks and mixes them as well as he can. Closing his eyes. he divides 
them into two piles, taking about an equal number in each hand. Then crossing 
his hands, he says to the other player, ‘“‘ Come, take whichever lot you cboose.” 
sumac stalks is 
* Canadian Savage Folk, p. 26, Toronto, 1896. 
>The History of Carolina, p. 27, London, 1714; p. 52, Raleigh, N. C., 1860. 
¢ Ibid., p. 176, London ed.; p. 288, Raleigh ed. 
4The American Anthropologist, v. 4, p. 344, 1891. 
