cuLIN] HOOP AND POLE: PAWNEE 463 
other and they would roll this little wheel to each other and would 
shoot the wheel with the arrows.: They played with the wheel every 
day until finally the younger brother failed to hit the wheel, when the 
wheel kept on rolling and did not stop. They followed its traces and. 
after a series of adventures, recovered the wheel from an old man, 
whom they killed. Later they ascended to the sky and became the 
Lightning and Thunder. 
Pawnee. Nebraska. 
Maj. Stephen H. Long wrote as follows: 
About the village we saw several parties of young men eagerly engaged at 
games of hazard. One of these, which we noticed particularly, is played between 
two persons, and something is staked on the event of each game. The instru- 
ments used are a small hoop, about 6 inches in diameter, which is usually wound 
with thongs of leather, and a pole 5 or 6 feet long, on the larger end of which 
a limb is left to project about 6 inches. The whole bears some resemblance to 
a shepherd's crook. The game is played upon a smooth beaten path, at one end 
of which the gamester commences, and, running at full speed, he first rolls 
from him the hoop, then discharges after it the pole, which slides along the 
path pursuing the hoop until both stop together, at the distance of about 30 
yards from the place whence they were thrown. After throwing them from 
him the gamester continues his pace, and the Indian, the hoop, and the pole 
arrive at the end of the path about the same time. The effort appears to be to 
place the end of the pole either in the ring, or as near as possible, and we could 
perceive that those casts were considered best when the ring was caught by the 
hook at the end of the pole. What constitutes a point, or how many points are 
reckoned to the game, we could not ascertain. It is, however, sufficiently evident 
that they are desperate gamesters, often losing their ornaments, -articles of 
dress, ete., at play. 
John T. Irving, jr,’ says: 
One of the principal games of the Pawnees, and the one on which the most 
gambling is carried on, is played by means of a small ring and a long javelin. 
The ring is about 4 inches in diameter, and the object of the player is to hur! his 
javelin through the ring, while it is sent rolling over the ground, with great 
speed, by one of his companions in the game. The javelin is filled with barbs 
nearly the whole length so that when it has once passed partly through the 
ring, it can not slide back. This is done to ascertain how far it went before it 
struck the edges of the ring, and the farther the cast the more it counts in favor 
of the one who hurled it. It is practiced by the children, young men, and 
chiefs. The first gamble for single arrows—the second for a bow and quiver— 
and the last for horses. 
John B. Dunbar says: ° 
The most usual game with men was stuts-au’-i-ka-tus, or simply stits-au’-i, 
played with a small hoop or ring, and stick. The hoop was about 4 inches in 
diameter, made of several coils of a small strip of rawhide wrapped tightly 
together with a stout string. At one point on the exterior of the hoop was a bead 
«Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, v. 1, p. 444, 
Philadelphia, 1823. 
* Indian Sketches, v. 2, p. 142, Vhiladelphia, 1835. 
¢ The Pawnee Indians. Magazine of American History, vy. 8, p. 749, New York, Noy., 
1882. 
