69 
Three specimens bear incised markings, the most simple consisting 
of transverse lines on one side of the bone. Another has three ; irregular ty 
spaced, short, transverse cuts on the front. One (Cat. No. \Tll-b-12U0U) 
has four groups of transverse incisions on three sides of the bone. . the 
most elaborately marked specimen has a row of irregularly spaced incisions 
on the front and a crudely incised triangular figure on one side (Plate XV , 
figure 21), and a row of notches is seen on one of the angles of the back. 
A black substance seems to have been rubbed into the incisions on this 
specimen, possibly to make them show up more distinctly. 
Similar objects, especially those like the one m Plate XV, figure 19, 
are common at other Iroquoian sites in Ontario and New York, being, found 
at Tionontati sites in Grey and Simeoe counties, at early Huron sites m 
Simcoe, York, and Victoria counties, at Neutral sites m southwestern 
Ontario {See author, 8, Plate XXIII, figures 5-7, and 9, Plate XV, figure 
13), and at Cayuga, Erie, and Onondaga sites in New York {bee bkinner, 
4, Figures 2 and 36, and Parker, 1:543, and 6:338). None has been 
found at an Algonkian site in Ontario, but they occur at sites of that 
culture in New York (Parker, 6, Plate 108) . A few are found at sites of 
other cultures in Ohio (Mills, 2:58) and Kentucky (Smith, 1, Plate XLIII, 
figures 5-7). ,. 
It has been suggested elsewhere in this report that these objects were 
possibly used as pendants, but it is more probable that they were used as 
units in the widely distributed ring, or cup., and pm game although we 
have no historical evidence that the Iroquois ever played this particular 
game; Parker (6:293) probably is wrong in stating that the game was 
common among the early Huron. These objects certainly resemble some 
of the units made from the same kind of bones, used in Arapaho, Cheyenne, 
Grosventre, Assinboine, and Dakota Indian games {See Culm, 2, figures 
aqc; 097 706 and 737-739). They differ from most of those used m modern 
games in not being cone-shaped and not fitting into one another; the 
larger opening, however, is sufficiently large to permit the cups to be easily 
caught on the pin. , ... , 
If these objects were parts of cup and pm games, it is possible that 
the units of each game were either all of one kind, their numerical value 
depending on their position on the string, or that each game w-as composed 
of more than one kind of unit. Some may have been like the Brule and 
Oglala Dakota Indian games, described and figured by Culm (2, b igures 
738 739) , in which the upper unit consists of a cup derived from a middle 
phalanx, whereas the rest of the units are made from proximal phalanges. 
The number of cups on a string may not have been constant, perhaps 
varying from three to nine, as in the modern games (Culm, 2:528). A 
special value may have been assigned to the marked unit in Plate X\ , 
figure 21. Possibly, also, if the player succeeded m catching one of the 
units, like those seen in figures 22 and 23, through one of the lateral holes, 
it counted a special point, as in the Chippewa game {See Boyle, 4 06. and 
Culin, 2:534). The value of the count may even have depended on the 
position of the hole on the front, back, or sides of the bone. 
^s7e Culin, 2, Bgs. 699-704, 707-709, 715, 716, 738-740; and Boyle, 4, fig. 134 v Pl”e md U 5) h 
wapiti. 
