90 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



they grow so expert, even if the guess is right, that the one playing 

 can change the bone to the other hand without its being seen. 



(3) Wometi's game. — The dice are made of beavers' teeth generally, 

 but sometimes from muskrats' teeth. There are two pairs of them, and 

 generally two persons play, one on each side ; but sometimes there are 

 two or three on each side. The teeth are all taken in one hand, and 

 thrown after the manner of dice. One has a string around the 

 middle. If this one is down and all the rest up, or up and the 

 rest down, it counts four; if all are up or down, it counts two; if one 

 pair is up and the other down, it counts one ; and if one pair is up 

 or down and the other divided, unless it be as above when it counts 

 four, then it counts nothing ; 30 is a game ; but they generally play 

 three games, and bet more or less, money, dresses, or other things. 

 They sometimes learn very expertly to throw the one with the string on 

 differently from the others, by arranging them in the hand so that they 

 can hold this one, which they know by feeling, a trifle longer than the 

 others. 



The general effect of gambling is bad, because it teaches them to lie 

 and cheat, and many other evils attend it besides the common ones of 

 loss of money, and the excitement. It is very common among them, 

 though less so than formerly. Eegular dice, chess, and checkers are 

 not used, and cards but very little. 



B. — Field sports and pastimes. 



Horse-racing and sometimes foot-racing are common. Bets are 

 made on them, generally small, but occasionally amounting to $300, 

 and are said to have amounted occasionally in former times to f 1,000. 



Dancing is another amusement, which was formerly very much 

 practised, but now very little. There are no partners chosen, but men 

 and women both dance; the men generally being together, and the 

 women by themselves, holding on to each other's hands, in the same 

 room. Their dancing is chiefly a jumping up and down, keeping time 

 to the music, which consists of singing, hallooing, pounding on a drum, 

 on sticks, or on the wall, &c., while rattles, either in their hands or hung 

 around their waists, are being continually shaken. These rattles are 

 simply deer-hoofs dried and hung on a string. 



C. — Sports and toys of children. 



The extent to which they are taught to mimic the occupations of their 

 seniors. — They are continually taught to do so from youth until grown. 



Tlieir toys and games as above. — Formerly the boys played at shooting 

 with bows and arrows at a mark, and with spears throwing at a mark, 

 with an equal number of children on each side, and sometimes the older 

 ones joined in ; but of late years there has been but little of this. They 

 now mimic their seniors in the noise and singing of gambling, but with- 



