442 GAMES OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS [nru. ann. 24 
Arapano. Cheyenne and Arapaho reservation, Oklahoma. 
Mr James Mooney ¢ describes the game of the biaqati, wheel, among 
the Arapaho, which, he says, “ was practically obsolete among the 
Prairie tribes, but which is being revived since the advent of the 
Ghost dance. As it was a favorite game with the men in the olden 
times, a great many of the songs founded on these trance visions refer 
to it, and the wheel and sticks are made by the dreamer and carried 
in the dance as they sing.” 
The game is played with a wheel (ba’qati, large wheel) and two 
pairs of throwing-sticks (qa’qa-u/nitha). The Cheyenne call the 
wheel 4i’ko’yo or ‘ikwi’u, and the sticks hoo’isi’yonots. It is a man’s 
game, and there are three players, one rolling the wheel, while the 
other two, each armed with a pair of throwing sticks, run after it 
and throw the sticks so as to cross the wheel in a certain position. 
The two throwers are the contestants, the one who rolls the wheel 
being merely an assistant. Like most Indian games, it is a means of 
gambling, and high stakes are sometimes wagered on the result. It is 
common to the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Sioux, and probably to all the 
northern Prairie tribes, but is not found among the Kiowa or the 
Comanche in the south. 
The wheel is about 18 inches in diameter, and consists of a flexible 
young tree branch, stripped of its bark and painted, with the two ends 
fastened together with sinew or buckskin string. At equal distances 
around the circumference of the wheel are cut four figures, the two 
opposite each other constituting a pair, but distinguished by different 
colors, usually blue or black and red, and by lines or notches on the 
face. These figures are designated simply by their colors. Figures 
of birds, crescents, etc., are sometimes also cut or painted upon the 
wheel, but have nothing to do with the game. 
The sticks are light rods, about 30 inches long, tied in pairs by a 
peculiar arrangement of buckskin strings, and distinguished from one 
another by pieces of cloth of different colors fastened to the strings. 
There is also a pile of tally sticks, usually a hundred in number, 
about the size of lead pencils and painted green, for keeping count 
of the game. The sticks are held near the center in a peculiar man- 
ner between the fingers of the closed hand. When the wheel is rolled, 
each player runs from the same side, and endeavors to throw the 
sticks so as to strike the wheel in such a way that when it falls both 
sticks of his pair shall be either over or under a certain figure. It 
requires dexterity to do this, as the string has a tendency to strike 
the wheel in such a way as to make one stick fall under and the other 
over, in which case the throw counts for nothing. The players assign 
@The Ghost-dance Religion. Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Hthnology, 
p. 994, 1896. 
