159 
numbers the throw is not reckoned; if two or four, the platter changes 
hands.” ^ Guessing contests played with straws or sticks were more 
widely spread even than dice, being especially popular on the Pacific 
coast. Mackenzie saw one form of it among the Carriers: “We all 
sat down on a very j^leasant green spot, and were no sooner seated 
than our guide and one of the party prepared to engage in play. 
They had each a bundle of about fifty small sticks neatly polished, 
of the size of a quill, and 5 inches long; a certain number of these 
sticks had red lines around them, and as many of these as one of the 
])layers might find convenient were curiously rolled up in dry grass, 
and according to the judgment of his antagonist respecting their 
number and marks he lost or won. Our friend was apparently the 
loser, as lie jiarted with his bow and arrows anrl several articles which 
I had given him.”- 
Inordinate gambling connected with one game or another was 
almost universal in Canada, and the traditions of the Indians contain 
many stories of men wlio lost all their possessions. It was a fertile 
source of (luarrels and bloodshed, particularly when the opponents in 
the games belonged to different tribes or bands. Some tribes played 
much more recklessly than others. In British Columbia the natives 
occasionally gambled away not only their clothing and other property, 
but even their wives and children. The Piegan Indians, on the other 
hand, “ have some things which are never gambled, as all that belongs 
to their wives and children and in this the tent is frequently included; 
and always the kettle, as it cooks the meat of the children, and the axe 
as it cuts the wood to warm them. The dogs and horses of the women 
are also exempt.”^ 
Devoted as they were to gambling, the Indians were even more 
passionately fond of dancing, which from its world-wide popularity 
would appear to be a natural response, conditioned by physiological 
rhythms, to certain emotional impulses. In Canada, as among primi- 
tive peoples elsewhere, dancing was generally the handmaid of 
religion, so much so indeed that Thompson asserted that all Indian 
dances had a religious tendency."* There was nevertheless much 
1 Mackenzie: Op. cit., p. 142, 
- Ibid., p. 311. 
^'Ihoinpson: Op, cit,, p. 361. ]'’or cninbling at llie stick and dice canios, and for Indian frames 
generally, C'/. the voluminoas rnonogrttpli by Cniin, Stuart; “Games of tlie North American Iiuliaiis’’ ; 
24th .^nn. Rept. Rur. Am. Ethn,, 1902-3 (Washington, 1907). 
■iThomp.son; Op. cit., p. 92. Cf. also Hewitt, ,T, X. B.: “Hantllmok of American Indians,” art. 
“Dance.” 
