400 GAMES OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS [ern any. 24 
lected from a number of tribes—Algonquian, Kiowan, and Siouan— 
remain unexplained. They are all alike, with two feathers stuck on 
pegs, and suggest a bird in their form. The third form of darts is 
probably derived from arrows. 
ALGONQUIAN STOCK 
Arapano. Cheyenne and Arapaho reservation, Oklahoma. 
Mr James Mooney % says: 
The bati’qtiba (abbreviated ti’qtip) game of the Arapaho and other prairie 
tribes somewhat resembles the Iroquois game of the snow-snake, and is played 
by children or grown persons of both sexes. It is a very simple game, the con- 
testants merely throwing or sliding the sticks along the ground to see who can 
send them farthest. Two persons or two parties play against each other, 
boys sometimes playing against girls, or men against women. It is, however, 
more especially a girls’ game. The game sticks (bitiqta’wa) are slender willow 
rods, about 4 feet long, peeled and painted, and tipped with a point of buffalo 
horn to enable them to slide more easily along the ground. In throwing, the 
player holds the stick at the upper end with the thumb and fingers, and, swing- 
ing it like a pendulum, throws it out with a sweeping motion. Young men throw 
arrows about in the same way, and small boys sometimes throw ordinary reeds 
or weed stalks. i 
Curyvenne. Oklahoma. (Cat. no. 21943, Free Museum of Science 
and Art, University of Pennsylvania.) 
Feathered bone (figure 512) for throwing on the ice, called hekone- 
natsistam, or bone game, consisting of a piece of buffalo or beef 
rib, 7 inches in length, with two sticks fitted at one end, each 
bearing a hawk feather, dyed red; total length, 25 inches. 
It was collected by Mr Louis L. Meeker, who has kindly furnished 
the following particulars: 
The thumb is placed on one side of the bone, the forefinger between the sticks, 
with the end against the end of the 
: bone, and the other three fingers op- 
Pe posed to the thumb against the other 
side of the rib, the convex side of 
which is down. It is then thrown 
down and forward against a smooth 
i — surface, preferably ice, so that it 
SEES TN glances forward as throwing-sticks 
rae and snow-snakes do. 
3. 512. ider: 7 inches; 
Fia. 51 Feathered bone slider: length, 7 inches; The marks etched on the bone rep- 
Cheyenne Indians, Oklahoma; cat. no. 21943, 
Free Museum of Science and Art, University of resent a horned toad, a tarantula, 
Pennsylvania. the milky way, and the moon. The 
four marks invoke the four winds, 
while the six legs of the tarantula represent up and down and the cardinal points. 
Oklahoma. (Cat. no. 67358, Field Columbian Museum.) 
Dart points, made of polished horn 32 inches in length, mounted on 
sticks 34 and 32 inches in length. The shorter one is notched at 
the end like an arrow. 
“The Ghost-dance Religion. Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 
p. 1007, 1896. 
