320 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



similar, but larger and thicker. It is from the Atwell fort, and is a 

 quarter of an inch thick. This is the oldest the writer has seen, 

 and, while some small stone disks may have been used, it is more 

 probable that fruit stones were the original Iroquois dice. They 

 were in use when the game was first described. In some other 

 states bone counters may have been exclusively used, and among 

 the western Indians the dice themselves were of various forms. 

 The Senecas called the peach stone game gus-ka-eh. 



At an early day the Iroquois children had a game requiring 

 pointed bones. A Jesuit remarked the likeness of Canadian Indian 

 games to those of France. 



Among others, I have seen the little Parisians cast an arquebuse 

 ball in the air, and catch it with a stick a little hollowed ; the little 

 savage Montagnards do the same, using a little bundle of pine 

 branches, which they catch and pitch in the air with a pointed 

 stick. The little Iroquois have the same pastime, throwing a small 

 pierced bone, which they transfix in the air on another little bone. 

 A young Iroquois told me this, seeing the Montagnard children 

 playing. Relation, 1634 



George Copway gives a brief account of both games among the 

 Ojibways. First is the tossing play used indoors. An oblong knot 

 •of cedar boughs is made about 7 inches long, and to this a string 15 

 inches long is attached. By this the knot is swung. To the other 

 «nd of the string a sharp stick is tied, which is about 2J- inches 

 long. " This is held in the hand, and, if the player can hit the 

 large stick every time it falls on the sharp one, he wins." Copway, 

 p. 48 



This is not very clear, and it is immediately followed by an 

 account of a " bone play " indoors, which is no clearer. In this 

 they use " hoof joint bones of the deer. The ends are hollowed 

 out, and from three to 10 are strung together. In playing it they 

 use the same kind of sharp stick, the end of which is thrown into 

 the bones." Copway, p. 48, 49 



However little we may understand this, we find in it a use for 

 the worked and perforated deer phalanges not apparent before. 

 At the Pan-American exposition good examples of these bones 

 arranged for this game were shown, five or six in a set, much like 

 those commonly called whistles. The broad and pointed awls with 



