Part 6

These are followed by games of Lots, a class of games extremely common among the North American Indians. The Haida and other tribes of the northwest coast play with sticks which are painted and carved. According to Dr. Franz Boas the sticks are thrown down violently upon a hard piece of skin, and the object of the game is to pick out the unmarked sticks, which alone count. The designs on the sticks are of the greatest interest, and a set of plaster casts of a very finely carved set in the United States National Museum at Washington, which are displayed through the courtesy of Professor Otis T. Mason, exhibit these peculiarities. The wooden discs from Puget Sound are concealed beneath a mat, and the players endeavor to select a particular disc. Guessing games of various kinds were very general among our Indians. The two bones, one wrapped with thread, which were used by the Alaska Indians in such a game, are exhibited with similar bones from the Utes. They were held in the hands, the player guessing which contained the marked one. The balls of buffalo hair with which the Omahas play a similar game are also displayed, with the moccasins in which the object was sometimes concealed. These games were played with the accompaniment of songs. Miss Alice C. Fletcher exhibits the music of two of these gambling songs used by the Omahas, and in Dr. Washington Matthews’ “Navajo Gambling Songs,” a copy of which may be seen in this case, the songs sung in the game of _Kêsitce_, played with eight moccasins, in one of which a stone is concealed, are recorded. Among the Zuñis and Mokis, cups like dice cups were used to cover the ball. The Moki cups here exhibited have been used in a sacred game and then sacrificed with “plume sticks,” as is shown by the small holes with which they are pierced.

Games can be made to throw much light upon the social and political institutions of many peoples. This fact is rendered conspicuous in the implements for the Chinese lotteries which are shown in this series. They comprise the paraphernalia of the _Pák-kòp-piu_ or “Game of the White Pigeon Ticket,” the _Tsz’ fá_, or “Character Flowering,” and the _Wei Sing_ or “Game of Guessing Surnames.” In the first, the tickets are imprinted with the first eighty characters of the _Tsin tsz’ man_, or Thousand Character Classic, one of the elementary text-books of Chinese children. In the second, the writer of the lottery assists his patrons in their effort to guess the hidden character, by an original ode, in which it must be in some way referred to.

The third is the game of guessing the name of the successful candidate at the Governmental Literary Examinations. Upon them all the peculiar literary traditions of the Chinese people have left their imprint.

CASE VI. KNUCKLE-BONES AND DICE, DOMINOES, EVOLUTION OF PLAYING CARDS, CHINESE PLAYING CARDS, PARCHESI, PATOLI, AND KAB.

No method of appealing to chance is more common than that of tossing some object in the air and deciding the result by its fall. A coin is often used at the present day, and many natural and artificial objects have found currency for this purpose. Nuts, cowrie shells, and the knuckle-bones of animals have been used from the earliest times, and the last, the knuckle-bones, have become the parent of many of our modern games. The American Indians across the entire continent played a game with marked plum-stones and other objects which had many points of resemblance with games played by other people with dotted cubical dice. The specimens of such games here exhibited comprise the game played with marked bone discs in a wooden bowl by the Penobscot Indians of Oldtown, Me., contributed by Chief Joseph Nicolar; a set of marked plum-stones and the basket and tallies used by the Sioux, and a similar set of marked bone and wooden pieces, with the basket, from the Arapahoes. Among the Pueblo Indians of the southwestern United States blocks of wood are used in the same manner as dice, and among the Arabs of northern Africa numerical values are attributed to the throws made with four and six similar pieces of reed. In India, cowries are used. Sortilege is also practised with the implements that are used in games. In China, the cleft root stock of the bamboo is commonly employed in fortune-telling, and the blocks, which form part of the accessories of nearly all Chinese temples, may be seen upon the altar of the Chinese God of War, commonly appealed to by Chinese gamblers, erected in this Section. Knuckle-bones or astragali present a most interesting subject for investigation. From a prehistoric knuckle-bone of terra-cotta from Cuzco, Peru (No. 340), in the collection of Señor Montes in this building it appears that they were used by the ancient Peruvians. The Peruvian Indians at the present day use four knuckle-bones as dice in a game. It is known in Kechua as _tava_, a word meaning four, which should not in the opinion of Señor Montes be confounded with the Spanish word for knuckle-bone, _taba_, from which he does not think it was derived.

Knuckle-bones were used in games in old Egypt, as was shown by the ivory specimens found with other gaming implements in the tomb of Queen Hatasu, B. C. 1600, and are constantly referred to by the Greek and Latin authors. Numerical values were attributed to each of the four throws, which among the Romans were designated as _Supinum_, _Pronum_, _Planum_, and _Tortuosum_, and estimated as three, five, one, and six. Among the Arabs, and at the present day throughout western Asia, the four sides receive the names of ranks of human society; thus among the Persians, according to Dr. Hyde, they are called _Duzd_, “thief,” _Dibban_, “peasant,” _Vezir_, and _Shah_, and so with the Turks, Syrians, Armenians, and other peoples. A pair of natural bones from the right and left leg of the sheep are commonly used, which among the Syrians of Damascus are designated respectively as _yisr_ and _yemene_, “left and right.” The transition from these _kabat_, as the Arabs call them, from _kab_ meaning “ankle” or “ankle-bone,” to the cubical dotted dice was an easy one. The same numerical values and social designations were attributed to four sides of the cubical dice, as are given to the knuckle-bones, and it is curious to note that the significant throws with cubical dice in China are those that bear the numbers assigned to the astragali throws. The modern East Indian dice which are exhibited will be seen from the arrangement of the “threes” to be made in pairs, like the natural astragali, and the pair receives in India the name of _kabatain_, the dual of _kab_, the name which is also applied to the pair of astragali. The Syrian dice used in _Towla_, or backgammon, are marked in the same way, as well as the Japanese dice used in the similar game of _Sugoroku_ or “double sixes.” A pair of ancient Roman dice which I purchased in Florence show that the Romans practised the same arrangement, and are especially significant. The invention of the cubical dotted die must have occurred at a comparatively early time. The oldest die of which I have any knowledge is displayed in this collection, a large pottery die from the Greek colony of Naucratis, Egypt, belonging, according to the discoverer, Mr. Flinders Petrie, to 600 B. C. The dice found in Babylonia and Egypt appear to have been associated with foreign influences.

Dice were carried over from India to China, where we find the next stage in their development. Here the twenty-one possible throws with two dice are each given a name, and in the case of the double sixes, double aces, double fours, and three and ace, these names are those of the triune powers of Heaven, Earth, and Man, and the Harmony that unites them. This change in nomenclature, in which the social terms of Shah, Vizier, etc., were replaced with cosmical ones, is characteristic of the way in which China adapts and absorbs foreign ideas. A game with two dice remains the principal dice game in China at the present day. In it the twenty-one possible throws are divided into two series, one consisting of the throws 6/6, 1/1, 4/4, 3/1, 5/5, 3/3, 2/2, 5/6, 4/6, 1/6, 1/5, called _man_, “civil,” and the other, 5/4, 6/3, 5/3, 6/2, 4/3, 5/2, 4/2, 3/2, 1/4, and 1/2, designated as _mò_, or “military.” In the twelfth century, according to Chinese records, dotted tablets, _i. e._, dominoes, were invented. Chinese dominoes consist of 21 pieces representing the 21 throws with two dice of which the 11 pieces of the _man_ series are usually duplicated to form a complete set, which numbers 32 dominoes. In southern China, long wooden dominoes are employed. When paper was used instead of wood we have the playing card.

The subject of Chinese playing cards has been illustrated in an admirable and exhaustive manner by W. H. Wilkinson, Esq., H. B. M. Consul at Swatow, who has lent for exhibition a series of Chinese cards, dice, and dominoes collected at no less than fourteen different cities in China, from Peking on the north, and Tai yuan, down along the coast at Nanking, Shanghai, Ningpo, Wenchow, Fuchow, Swatow, Canton, to Hongkong. Cards are also shown from various places along the Yellow River, from Chung King eastward to Nanking. The cards in this collection are arranged according to the symbols or marks distinguishing them, which Mr. Wilkinson divides into four classes, according as they are derived:

1. From the sapek or cash, and its multiples.

2. Through dominoes from dice.

3. From the Chinese Chess game.

4. From other sources.

A very complete account may be expected from Mr. Wilkinson, who has displayed here what is doubtless the most perfect collection of Chinese cards ever exhibited. The miscellaneous cards in this collection are drawn from western China and bear some resemblance, according to Mr. Wilkinson, to the “Proverbs” and “Happy Families” of Europe and America. They include the cards based on a writing lesson, cards based on numbers, and cards based on a lucky formula.

Returning to the subject of dice, the special implements used in dice divination in India are shown, as well as illustrations of the methods employed in telling fortunes with dominoes in China and Korea; these forming part of the material used in the investigation of the origin of dominoes. Japanese and Siamese dice are also exhibited with the East Indian and Chinese specimens, as well as dice made in various parts of Europe, comprising a pair of iron dice purchased at Perugia, which, although presumably modern, have the dots arranged with the 6–5, 4–2, and 3–1 opposite, like those of old Etruria, instead of the sums of the spots on opposite sides being equal to seven, as is otherwise general. With the dice are the spinning dice of various countries, including the East Indian _Chukree_, the Chinese _Ch’e me_, and the corresponding dice of Japan and Siam. A variety of dominoes are also displayed, including those of Korea, which are identical with those of China, and the Siamese dominoes, which were also borrowed from the latter country.

The pair of knuckle-bones appear to be the parent of many of that large class of games which Mr. Tylor describes as the “backgammon group.” With reference to dice-backgammon the evidence in this particular is very direct, but the similar games played with cowries and wooden blocks, for which even a greater antiquity may be claimed, there is a likelihood of independent origin. Several games of the latter class from India, North America, and Egypt, types of which have been referred to by Mr. Tylor, are exhibited in this collection. The first, _Pachisi_, is the most popular game in India. It is played around a board, usually made of cloth, in the form of a cross, according to the throws with cowries. Six or seven shells are ordinarily used, and count according as the apertures fall. When long dice of ivory are employed, the game is called _Chausar_. This game was introduced from India into the United States, where it was first published in 1860 under the name of Parchesi, and has become very popular. Mr. Cushing has set up beside the _Pachisi_ a Zuñi game, which the Zuñis call _Ta sho lí wé_, or “wooden cane cards,” and which has many points of resemblance to the East Indian game. The moves are made according to the throws with wooden blocks three inches in length, painted red and black upon their two faces, around a circle of forty stones which is broken at the top and bottom, and the right and left, by four openings called the “Doorways of the four directions.” This game embodies many of the mythical conceptions of the Zuñis. It is played by two or four players, who use colored splints to mark their course around the circle. These splints, which are placed at starting in the doorway to which they correspond, have the following symbolism: At the top, Yellow, North, The Wind, Winter. At the left, Blue, West, Water, Spring. At the bottom, Red, South, Fire, Summer. At the right, White, East, Seed or Earth, Autumn. The colors of the two wooden blocks symbolize the two conditions of man: Red, Light or Wakefulness; Black, Darkness or Sleep. The throws with the blocks, which are tossed, ends down, upon a disc of sandstone placed in the middle of the circle, are as follows: 3 red count 10; 3 black count 5; 2 red and 1 black count 3; 1 red and 2 black count 1.

A count of three red gives another throw. When four play, the North and West move around from right to left, and the South and East from left to right. When a player’s move ends at a division of the circle occupied by his adversaries’ piece, he takes it up and sends it back to the beginning. It is customary to make the circuit of the stones either four or six times, beans or corn of the seven varieties being used as counters. This game forms one of the seven sacred games of the Zuñis, and its antetype, _Sho lí we_, or “Cane Cards,” is one of the four games that are sacrifices to the God of War and Fate. The sacred form of the game is called _Tein thla nah na tá sho lí we_, or literally, “Of all the regions wood cane cards, and the blocks which are thrown in it bear complicated marks, consisting of bands of color on one side.” In the sacred game, the players are chosen with great care with reference to their totem, and the region to which it belongs. A much more complete account of this game may be expected from Mr. Cushing himself, from the ample material which he has placed at my disposal. Side by side with _Ta sho lí we_ is the corresponding game as played by the Apache and Navajos, which has been set up by Antonio Apache. It lacks the color symbolism, but the principle is identical. The Navajos call it _Set tilth_, which Captain John G. Bourke, U. S. A., tells me should be transliterated _Tze-chis_, or _Zse tilth_, and means literally, “stonestick.” The circle of stones, he says, is called _Tze nasti_, “Stone circle.”

Lieut. H. L. Scott, U. S. A., has contributed the implements for a similar game of the Kiowas, which is known as the “Awl Game.” It is called by the Kiowas _Zohn ahl_, that is, _Zohn_, “creek,” and _ahl_, “wood.” A detailed account of it will appear elsewhere, furnished to the writer by Lieutenant Scott, who states that the Comanches have a similar game which they play with eight ahl sticks, which are two feet or more long.

These games are all similar to the Mexican Patoli, as described by the early Spanish chroniclers. A picture of the latter game from an early Hispano-American manuscript, reproduced from the original in Florence by its discoverer, Mrs. Zelia Nuttall, is exhibited in this connection. The method of play among the Aztecs is here shown, and it is curious to note that they used a diagram or board in the form of a cross, like that of the East Indian Pachisi. In the Malayan archipelago, a stone is placed in the centre upon which dice are thrown in games, as among the North American Indians. Mr. Tylor has set forth the conclusions which may be drawn from these resemblances, but the matter is still open for discussion. Another game remains to be noticed, played with wooden blocks as dice: the Arab game of _Tab_, in which men are moved on a board according to the throws of four slips of palm. These slips, about eight inches in length, are left with one face of the natural color, and the other showing the whiter interior of the palm, these sides being called black and white respectively. The throws count as follows: 4 black, 6; 4 white, 4; 3 white, 3; 2 white, 2; 1 white, 1.

The implements displayed for this game were made in the Cairo street. No more curious ethnographical parallels are presented in the Exposition than that of the Arabs in the Plaisance, and the Navajos beside the South Lagoon, both playing these curiously similar games.

CASE VII. BACKGAMMON, SUGOROKU, AND THE GAME OF GOOSE, EAST INDIAN, JAPANESE, AND SIAMESE CARDS.

According to Mr. Tylor, dice-backgammon makes its appearance plainly in classic history. The game of twelve lines (_duodecim scripta_) was played throughout the Roman Empire and passed on, with little change, through mediæval Europe, carrying its name of tabulæ, tables; its modern representatives being French Tric trac, English Backgammon, etc. Among the ancient Greeks _Kubeia_, or “dice playing,” is shown by various classical passages to be of the nature of backgammon. The pearl-inlaid backgammon board here shown is from Damascus, where the game is known as _Towla_, “tables.” A Siamese board exhibited by the government of Siam, with other games, through its royal commissioner Phra Surya, has departed little from the ancient type. Backgammon is known in China as _Sheung Luk_, “double sixes,” and in Japan by the corresponding name of _Sugoroku_. The popular games, both in China and Japan, however, are not played with men upon a set board, but resemble the games with many stations, which are common in Europe and America.

The most notable of the Chinese games of this class is the one which is called _Shing kun to_, or “The Tables of the Promotion of Officials,” a game which has been known to scholars, through Dr. Hyde’s account, as “The Game of the Promotion of Mandarins.” It is played by two or more persons upon a large paper diagram, upon which are printed the titles of the different officials and dignitaries of the Chinese government. The moves are made according to the throws with four cubical dice, and the players, whose positions upon the diagram are indicated by notched or colored splints, are advanced or set back, according to their throws. The paper chart here exhibited was purchased in a Chinese shop in New York city. It was printed in Canton, and bears an impression about twenty-three inches square. This is divided into sixty-three compartments, exclusive of the central one and the place for entering at the lower right-hand corner. The latter contains the names of thirteen different starting-points, from _yan shang_, or “Honorary Licentiate,” down to _t’ung shang_, or “student,” between which are included the positions of _t’ín man shang_, “astrologer,” and _í shang_, “physician.” These are entered at the commencement of the game by the throws of “three, four, five, six,” three “fours,” three “sixes,” three “fives,” three “threes,” three “twos,” and three “ones;” and then in the same manner double “fours,” and so on down to double “ones.”

The sixty-three compartments, representing as many classes of officials or degrees of rank, comprise three hundred and ninety-seven separate titles, of which the highest, and the highest goal of the game, is that of man _fá tín tái hok sz’_, or “Grand Secretary.” This, however, under favorable conditions, can only be reached by a player who starts from a favorable point, advancement in the game being regulated by rules similar to those which actually regulate promotion under government. Thus, a player whose fortune it is to enter as physician or astrologer can only obtain promotion in the line of his service, and must be content with a minor goal, as he is ineligible to the high civil office of “Grand Secretary.”

The dice are thrown into a bowl placed in the centre of the sheet, the players throwing in turn, and each continuing to throw until he makes a cast of doublets or higher. It is noticeable that “fours,” as in Dr. Hyde’s account, constitute the highest throw. A pair of “fours,” according to the rules, is to be reckoned as _tak_, “virtue,” and leads to a higher place than those of the other numbers. Sixes are next highest and are to be reckoned as _ts’oi_, “genius;” and in the same manner, in descending degree, “fives” are to be reckoned as _kung_, “skill;” “threes” as _léung_, “forethought;” “twos” as _yau_, “tractability;” and “ones,” _chong_, “stupidity.” The game is much complicated by being played for money or counters, which is necessary under the rules. By this means advancement may be purchased, degradation compounded for, and the winner of a high position rewarded.

The main point of difference between the game as it exists to-day, and as described by Dr. Hyde, is the number of dice employed, six being the number mentioned by him. The enlarged form of the diagram is of minor importance, as he himself says that the names of officials written on the tablet are many or few, according to the pleasure of the players. With the game of _Shing kún_ to may be seen a copy of Dr. Hyde’s treatise, _De Ludis Orientalibis_, containing the reproduction of the chart of the game which he made in London 200 years ago. The names of titles of the Ming dynasty appear upon it, in curious contrast to those of the present Tartar domination. The two hundredth anniversary of the date of the imprimatur of this precious volume occurs on the 20th of September of this very year.

There is a very great variety of games of this character in Japan, new ones being published annually at the season of the New Year. Illustrations of the more formal game played upon a board divided into twelve parts are figured in the Chinese-Japanese cyclopædias. According to the _Kum mō dzu e tai sei_, the twelve compartments, called in Japanese _me_, or “eyes,” symbolize the twelve months, and the black and white stones with which the game is played, day and night.

Italy contributes several forms of the dice game played upon a board having many stations. The oldest specimen in the collection, purchased in Parma, is a manuscript game bearing the title of _Oca Franchese_. Others printed in Florence bear the printed labels of _Giuoco dell’ oca_ and _Giuoco del Barone_, while late examples more fanciful, both in name and design, appear as _Giuoco del Tramway_ and _La Battaglia del 48_. A French game is shown under its proper title as _Jeu de l’oie_, beside which is placed a similar American game published as the “Game of Goose.”

A number of packs of Oriental cards other than Chinese are contained in this case, among which are included several packs of East Indian Hindu cards which they call _Gungeefa_. They are all circular, varying in diameter in the different sets from 1⅝ to 3⅛ inches. One pack from Lucknow comprises eight suits, each composed of twelve cards, ten of which are “numerals,” from one to ten. The two remaining cards are designated respectively as _Badsha_ and _Sawar_. No satisfactory explanation has yet been afforded as to their origin.