260 GAMES OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS [eru. ayy. 24 
Hawa. Queen Charlotte islands, British Columbia. 
Francis Poole“ says: 
The game was Odd or Even, which is played thus: The players spread a mat, 
made of the inner bark of the yellow cypress, upon the ground, each party being 
provided with from forty to tifty round pins or pieces of wood, 5 inches long 
by one-eighth of an inch thick, painted in black and blue rings and beautifully 
polished. One of the players, selecting a number of these pins, covers them up 
in a heap of bark cut into fine fiberlike tow. Under cover of the bark he then 
divides the pins into two parcels, and having taken them out, passes them several 
times from his right hand to his left, or the contrary. While the player shuffles 
he repeats the words i-e-ly-yah to a low, monotonous chant or moan. The 
moment he finishes the incantation his opponent, who has been silently watch- 
ing him, chooses the parcel where he thinks the luck lies for odd or even. After 
which the second player takes his innings with his own pins and the same cere- 
monies. This goes on till one or the other loses all his pins. That decides the 
game. 
— Haida mission, Jackson, Alaska. (Cat. no. 73522, United 
States National Museum. ) 
Set of thirty-two carved polished birch-wood sticks, 4% inches in 
length and eight-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, the ends flat. 
Collected in 1884 by Mr J. Loomis Gould. The designs on eight of 
the sticks are shown on plate vy. 
——— Queen Charlotte islands. British Columbia. 
Prof. George M. Dawson ” says: 
Gambling is as common with the Haida as among most other tribes, which 
means that it is the most popular and constantly practised of all their amuse- 
ments. The gambler frequently loses his entire property, continuing the play 
till he has nothing whatever to stake. The game generally played I have not 
been able to understand clearly. It is the same with that of most of the coast 
tribes and not dissimilar from gambling games played by the natives from 
the Pacific coast to Lake Superior. Sitting on the ground in a circle, in the 
center of which a clean cedar mat is spread, each man produces his bundle of 
neatly smoothed sticks, the values of which are known by the markings upon 
them. They are shuffled together in soft teased cedar bark and drawn out by 
chance. 
James G. Swan ° says: 
The Haida, instead of disks, use sticks or pieces of wood 4 or 5 inches long and 
a quarter of an inch thick. These sticks are rounded and beautifully polished. 
They are made of yew, and each stick has some designating mark upon it. 
There is one stick entirely colored and one entirely plain. Each player will 
have a bunch of forty or fifty of these sticks, and each will select either of the 
plain sticks as his favorite, just as in backgammon or checkers the players 
select the black or white pieces. The Indian about to play takes up a handful 
of these sticks and, putting them under a quantity of finely separated cedar 
bark, which is as fine as tow and kept constantly near him, he divides the pins 
«Queen Charlotte Islands, p. 319, London, 1872. 2 
>Report on the “Queen Charlotte Islands. Geological Survey of Canada, Report of 
Progress for 1878-79, p. 1298, Montreal, 1880. 
¢ Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, no. 267, p. 8, 1874. 
