CULIN] HIDDEN-BALL GAME: CHIPPEWA 341 
Cureprprwa. Wisconsin. 
Prof. I. I. Ducatel ¢ says: 
Their favorite game is the mukesinnah dahdewog, or moccasin game. It is 
played with four bullets (one of which is jagged) and four moccasins. The 
four bullets are to be hid, one under each moccasin, by the first player, whose 
‘deal is decided by throwing up a knife and letting it fall on the blanket, the 
direction of the blade indicating the person who is to hide first. The four 
bullets are held in the right hand, and the left hand is kept moving from one 
moceasin to the other; whilst the player, with a peculiar manner calculated to 
divert the attention of the one with whom he is playing, and with an incessant 
chant, accompanied by a swinging motion of the head and trunk, passes his 
Fic. 453. Moccasin game; Chippewa Indians, Mille Lacs, Minnesota; from photograph by Mr 
D. I. Bushnell, jr. 
bullet hand under the moccasins, depositing a bullet under each. The other is 
to guess where the jagged bullet is, but not at the first trial; for if he strikes 
upon it the first time, he loses 4 sticks—there being 20 altogether, that are used 
as counters; if the second time he makes a similar guess, then he loses 3 
sticks; but if he guess the situation of the jagged bullet the third time, then he 
gains 4 sticks; finally should the bullet remain under the fourth moccasin, 
the guesser loses 4 sticks. The game continues until the twenty sticks have 
passed from one hand to the other. At this game, of which they are very fond, 
they stake everything about them and sometimes come away literally stripped. 
The groups that are thus collected present the most characteristic of Indian 
«A Fortnight among the Chippewas of Lake Superior. The Indian Miscellany. edited by 
W. W. Beach, p. 367, Albany, 1877. Reprinted from the United States Catholic Magazine 
Baltimore, January and February, 1846. 
