568 



NA TURE 



[April i6, 190S 



individuals a nominal charge will in future be made for 

 the Harvard publications. 



The Saturn Perturbations of Various Comets. — An 

 abstract (No. 3) from the Archiv der deutschen Seewartc 

 (vol. XXX., 1907) contains an important mathematical dis- 

 cussion of the perturbations of several comets by Saturn. 

 The first-order perturbations of comets 1889 V., 1896 VI., 

 and 1903 V. (Brooks) are discussed, and the work has 

 been carried out by Dr. Johannes VVendt. 



THE GAMES OF NORTH AMERICAN 

 INDIANS.' 



TT has been known that Mr. Ste.vart Culin, formerly of 

 ■*■ the Free Museum of Science and Art in Philadelphia, 

 and now of the Brooklyn Institute Museum, has for many 

 years been engaged in a study of the games of the 

 American Indians, and his monograph on the subject has 

 recently been published in the " Twenty-fourth Annual 

 Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology." The 

 value of the memoir can partly be judged by the fact 

 that, with the full index, it e.xtends to S46 pages and 

 contains 1112 figures in the text, in 

 addition to twenty-one plates. The 

 memoir itself is practically an illus- 

 trated catalogue of specimens in 

 various museums, combined with 

 extracts from numerous authors. 

 Students of this interesting and sug- 

 gestive branch of ethnology have now 

 for the first time a mass of data at 

 their disposal, and it is to be hoped 

 that other regions of the world will 

 be treated by equally qualified investi- ■,..' 

 gators in a similarly thorough 

 manner. Some material for such 

 studies occurs scattered in various 

 publications and in unpublished 

 museum specimens, but more held- 

 work is necessary before anything so 

 complete as Mr. Culin 's monograph 

 can be accomplished. 



The collection has been confined to 

 games in which implements are 

 employed, but Indian children have 

 manv amusements played without 

 accessories which belong to a different 

 category from those described by Mr. 

 Culin. It is to be hoped that these 'f. 

 will eventually be studied, as they are s^ 

 of equal interest with the others. { 



The indigenous games of the ?• 

 American Indians, excluding purely ? 

 children's games, may be divided into 

 two groups : — (i) games of chance ; 

 (2) games of dexterity. Games of 

 pure skill and calculation, such as 

 chess, are entirely absent. In the 

 first group are : — (i) games in which 

 the nature of dice are thrown at random to determine 

 a number or numbers, and the sum of the count is 

 kept by means of sticks, pebbles, &c., or upon a count- 

 ing board ; (2) games in which one or more of the 

 players guess in which of two or more places an odd 

 or specially marked lot is concealed, success or failure 

 resulting in the gain or loss of counters. In the second 

 group are: — (i) archery in various modifications; (2) a 

 game of sliding javelins or darts upon the hard ground 

 or ice ; (3) a game of shooting at a moving target consist- 

 ing of a netted wheel or a ring ; (4) the game of ball in 

 several highly specialised forms ; (5) the racing games, 

 more or less related to and complicated with the ball 

 games. In addition, a few other games are described, 

 and allusion is made to introduced games, such as cards 

 ind board games. 

 References to games are of common occurrence in the 



ligin myths of various North American tribes. They 



Indians." By Stewart Culin. 

 luof American Ethnology, 1902-3. 

 Printing Office, 1907.) 



usually consist of a description of a series of contests, in 

 which the first man or culture hero overcomes some 

 opponent or foe of the human race. The primal gamblers 

 are the Divine Twins, the miraculous offspring of the Sun, 

 who are the principal personages in many Indian 

 mythologies. They, who are the morning and evening 

 stars, live in 'he east and the west, ruling day and night, 

 summer and winter. Their virgin mother, who also 

 appears as their sister and wife, is constantly spoken of 

 as their grandmother, and is the Moon or the Earth, the 

 Spider Woman, the embodiment of the feminine principle 

 in nature. Always contending, they are the original 

 patrons of play, and their games are the games now 

 played by men. Mr. Gushing thus described the Twins in 

 his account of the Zuni War Gods : — 



" Lo I and of Chance and Fate were they the masters 

 of foredeeming, for they carried the word-painted arrows 

 of destiny, like the regions of men, four in number. And 

 they carried the shuttlecocks of divination, like the regions 

 of men, four in number. And they carried tubes of hidden 

 things . . . and the revealing balls thereof. . . . Yea, and 

 they bore with these other things, the feather bow and 

 plume arrow of far-finding, tipped with the shell of heart- 



iiplements of 



' "The Games of the North 

 Ivventy fourth Annual Report of the B 

 I'p. xl + 846. (Washington : G 



NO. 2007, VOL. 77] 



searching ; and the race sticks of swift journeys and way- 

 winning, two of them, the right and the left, the pursuer 

 and the pursued of men in contention. .Ml these things 

 wherewith to divine men's chance, and play games of 

 hazard, wagering the fate of wfiole nations on mere 

 pastime, had they with them." 



The gaming implements of most North .American 

 Indians " are almost exclusively derived from these sym- 

 bolic weapons." Thus the stick dice arc either arrow- 

 shafts or miniature bows, and a similar origin may be 

 asserted for the two or four bones employed in the hand- 

 guessing game or in the four-stick game. Counting sticks 

 in general and the numerous sticks of the widely spread 

 stick game are arrows. The engraved and painted tubes 

 used in the guessing game are arrow shaftments, and this 

 variant probably arose in a country where strong, hollow 

 reeds were used as arrows. In the games of dexterity we 

 also find bows and arrows, often associated with the 

 netted shield. The snow-snako, or game in which missiles 

 are hurled along snow, ice, or frozen ground, appears to 

 be confined to the northern range of tribes within the 

 ! limit of ice and snow ; the projectiles are apparently 



