174 INDIAN GAMES. 



ing description of tlie assembling of the Indians in their 

 play houses. He divides the games into two sorts, private 

 and public. "Their publique games," he says, "are sol- 

 emnized with the meeting of hundreds, sometimes thou- 

 sands, and consist of many varieties, none of which I durst 

 ever be present at that I might not countenance and par- 

 take of their foUy after I once saw the evill of them." lin- 

 der the name, "Puttuckquapuonck, a playing arbour," he 

 describes their play house as foUows : "This Arbour or Play 

 house is made of long poles set in the earth, four Square, 

 sixteen or twentie feet high, on which they hang great 

 störe of their stringed money, have great stakings, towne 

 against towne, and two chosen out of the rest by course 

 to play the Game at this kind of Dice, in the midst of all 

 their abettors, with great shouting and solemnity." "This 

 kind of dice," he had already described as "plumb-stones 

 painted, which they cast in a tray with a mighty noise 

 and sweating." 



In a note to the edition of the "Key" published by the 

 Narragansett Club, Dr. Trumbull, the editor, says: "The 

 Abnakis (Kaie, s. v. Jouer) played this game with eight 

 such dice or counters. AVhen the black and white turned 

 up 4 and 4, or 5 and 3, the player made no count ; for 6 

 and 2, he counted four, for 7 and 1, ten, and when all eight 

 were of one color, twenty." 



Major Stephen H. Long translates the Omaha word for 

 dice, as Dorsey does " Plum-shooting," and adds that the 

 game was played with sticks as counters. ^^* 



Long,^^ the Indian Interpreter, describes a form of dice, 

 under the name Athtergain, which was played with black 



""^Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, etc. 

 Vol. I, p. 215. For this reference and for other suggestions, I am indebted to the 

 kindness of Mr. Lucien Carr, Assistant Curator Peabody Museum. Tlie paper of 

 Dorsey is referred to in Note 65, former paper. 



12 Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter, etc. London, 1791, p. 52. 



