486 GAMES OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS [ern. ann. 24 
from one generation to another, and are exempted from being buried with the 
dead. They belong to the town where they are used, and are carefully 
preserved. 
Capt. Bernard Romans“ says: 
Their favorite game of chunké is a plain proof of the evil consequences of a 
violent passion for gaming upon all kinds, classes, and orders of men; at this 
they play from morning to night, with an unwearied application, and they bet. 
high; here you may see a savage come and bring all his skins, stake them and 
lose them; next his pipe, his beads, trinkets and ornaments; at last his blanket, 
and other garment, and even all their arms, and, after all it is not uncommon for 
them to go home, borrow a gun and shoot themselves; an instance of this hap- 
pened in 1771 at Hast Yasoo a short time before my arrival. Suicide has also 
been practised here on other occasions, but they regard the act as a crime, and 
bury the body as unworthy of their ordinary funeral rites. 
The manner of playing this game is thus: They make an alley of about 200 
feet in length, where a very smooth clay ground is laid, which when dry, is very 
hard; they play two together, each having a straight pole of about 15 feet long; 
one holds a stone, which is in the shape of a truck, which he throws before him 
over his alley, and the instant of its departure, they set off and run; in running 
they cast their poles after the stone; he that did not throw it endeavors to hit 
it; the other strives to strike the pole of his antagonist in its flight, so as to pre- 
vent its hitting the stone; he counts 1, but should both miss their aim the throw 
is renewed; and in case a score is won the winner casts the stone and 11 is up: 
they hurl this stone and pole with wonderful dexterity and violence, and fatigue 
themselves much at it. 
Huma. Mississippi. 
Father James Gravier ” says: 
in the middle of the village a fine level square, where from morning to 
night there are young men who exercise themselves in running after a flat stone, 
which they throw in the air from one end of the square to the other, and which 
they try to have fall on two cylinders that they roll where they think that the 
stone will fall. 
Muskocer. Georgia. 
Col. Benjamin Hawkins © says: 
The Micco, counselors and warriors, meet every day in the public square, sit 
and drink a-cee, a strong decoction of the cassine yupon, called by the traders 
black drink; talk of news, the public, and domestic concerns, smoke their pipes, 
and play thla-chal-litch-cau, * roll the bullet.” 
William Bartram, in a manuseript work on the Southern Indians, 
cited by Squier and Davis,’ wrote as follows: 
Chunk yards.—The ‘chunk yards’ of the Muscogulges, or Creeks, are rectan- 
gular areas, generally occupying the center of the town. The public square and 
rotunda, or great winter council house, stand at the two opposite corners of 
them. They are generally very extensive, especially in the large old towns: 
some of them are from 600 to 900 feet in length, and of proportionate breadth. 
“A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, y. 1, p. 79, New York, 1775. 
»’ Journal of the Voyage of Father Gravier (1700), in Barly Voyages Up and Down the 
Mississippi, p. 148, John Gilmary Shea, Albany, 1861. 
¢ A Sketch of the Creek Country. Collection of the Georgia Historical Society, v. 3, 
p. 71, Savannah, 1848. 
“4 Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York. Smithsonian Contributions to 
Knowledge, v. 2, p. 185, 1849. 
