evi] STICK GAMES: HAIDA 261 
into two parcels, which he wraps up in the bark, and passes them rapidly 
from hand to hand under the tow, and finally moves them round on the 
ground or mat on which the players are always seated, still wrapped in the 
fine bark, but not covered by the tow. His opponent watches every move 
that is made from the very first with the eagerness of a cat, and finally, by a 
motion of his finger, indicates which of the parcels the winning stick is in. 
The player, upon such indication, shakes the sticks out of the bark, and with 
much display and skill, throws them one by one into the space between the 
players till the piece wanted is reached; or else, if it is not there, to show 
that the game is his. The winner takes one or more sticks from his opponent’s 
pile, and the game is decided when one wins all the sticks of the other. As 
veither of the players can see the assortment of the sticks, the game is as fair 
for one as the ether, and is as simple in reality as “odd or eyen”’ or any child’s 
game. But the ceremony of manipulation and sorting the sticks under the bark 
tow gives the game an appearance of as much real importance as some of the 
skilful combinations of white gamblers. 
The tribes north of Vancouver Island, so far as my observation has extended, 
use this style of sticks in gambling, while the Salish or Flatheads use the disks. 
Dr J. R. Swanton“ says under Games: > 
The great gambling game of the Haida was the same as that used on neigh- 
boring parts of the mainland. It was played with a set of cylindrical sticks, 
four or five inches long. The number of sticks varies in the sets that I have 
seen, one haying as many as seventy. Some of the sets were made of bone, but 
the most of yew or some similar kind of wood. These were finely polished, and. 
in many cases elaborately carved or painted, but usually were simply divided 
into sets of from two to four by various lines drawn around them in black and 
red. One of the sticks was left blank, or nearly so, and was called djil [bait]. 
In playing, two men sat opposite each other with their sticks disposed in front 
of them. Then one rapidly selected one set of sticks and the djil, shuffled 
them up concealed in fine cedar bark, divided the sticks into two parcels, and 
laid them down, one on each side. Sometimes he made three parcels. The 
opponent had now to guess which of these contained the djil. If he were suc- 
cessful, the first player did the same thing again with another set. After each 
guess the sticks were thrown out on a piece of hide in front of both players. 
When a player guessed right, he in turn laid out his sticks. It is not so true 
to say that cheating was fair in Haida gambling as to say that it was part 
of the game. If one could conceal or get rid of the djil temporarily, so much the 
better. The people were very much addicted to gambling, and, according to 
the stories, whole towns were in the habit of giving themselves up to it; but the 
chances of choosing the djil were so great that, ordinarily, one could not lose 
very rapidly. I was told that they sometimes played all day without either 
side winning. On the other hand, stories tell of how whole families and towns 
were gambled away. 
The entire gambling outfit was quite expensive. There were the gambling 
sticks themselves; the bag in which they were carried and the bag in which sey- 
eral sets were carried, the skin upon which the sticks were laid out, the mat upon 
which the actual gambling was done, a thick piece of hide about a foot square 
upon which the sticks selected by the opponent were thrown so that all could 
see them; pencils used to inark lines on the sticks. A stone receptacle with two 
compartments was used for grinding up red and black paint. 
«Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida. Memoirs of the American Museum of 
Natural History, whole series, v. 8, p. 58, New York, 1905. 
