CHAPTER XI

THEIR GAME OF SING-GAMBLE

There are still many practices of the early Indians continued through the present generation of half civilized and half-blood descendants. The Indian has an inveterate love of gambling. Indeed, the Indian life is all a game of chance, so superstitious a being is he. They probably have gambled ever since the days of the first Indian. Among the games is that of “sing-gamble,” which though divested of much of its old-time ceremony, is still the great game of chance among them. In its simple form it is but a plain game of guessing with the chances equally for or against the players. The Indians, however, believe in it with all their soul and they will throw their whole soul into it to-day as they will risk their all, horses, dogs, canoes, jewelry, almost their wives and children upon its infatuous chances. The preparation and ceremony formerly attendant upon it is what gave to the game its great renown. To-day when played with more than a dozen persons it is still a game of great moment. The writer, who recently visited the Skokomish Indians had the pleasure of witnessing a “sing-gamble,” which lasted almost an entire night, though but a few took part. The illustration accompanying this story is a good representation of the scene, as it is an exact likeness of the half-breed and full-blood Indians who participated. Night time, that lends the most weirdness, is chosen as the time for the “sing-gamble.”

In brief, a huge fire was built, on either side of which a long board was laid down on a shorter piece, so that they might be said to represent the strings of a violin. The players ranged themselves back of the boards in two opposing sides. The gambling paraphernalia consisted of several sticks of green alder with the bark peeled off, excepting some that had a little ring of bark left around the middle of the stick. Counters for the game were secured in the shape of sharpened cedar sticks, which were set in the ground on either side of the fire in front of the players. In that instance 30 points constituted the game, though it is often run up to 60. Preliminary to the start the bets had to be arranged between the players. Two canoes, a silver watch, two ponies, $1.50 in silver, a coat, a shirt and some other things were wagered on the result. This preliminary took up a great deal of time and much talking, but was finally adjusted to the satisfaction of all. Then the game began.

Two of the players on one side selected each two of the alder sticks, which were about four inches long and an inch in diameter. Each man took one clean of bark and one with the circle of bark left in the middle, that was the distinguishing mark. The point to be detected by the opposing side was which hand held the clean stick or which the one with the bark on it. First the two Indians having the sticks fumbled with them under their shirts, then they brought them forth and the music began, all the Indians on that side joining in and at the same time those not holding the sticks keeping time by rapping on the board in front of them with long sticks of hard wood. The music, if such it could be called, was rapid and vociferous, a kind of sing-song monotone drawling affair, which at times changed to something very like a rude melody.

All this time the two players were swinging their hands at half arm, bending at the elbow, in front of them, while they leaned far forward with their bodies, anon at times throwing their heads back and their chests out and all the time keeping up that dreadful, unearthly singing. Occasionally they would dextrously throw the short sticks in the air, catch them again and slap them under their shirts, bring them forth again, all the time keeping up with the procession of noise and the motions of their bodies.

The more pandemonium, the more hurrah the harder it was supposed to be for the opponents to guess the proper hand that held the bark-ringed stick.

Whenever an opponent made a guess he quickly threw out one hand to arm’s length in a pointing way, while with the other he made a fanning motion in a half circle, placing the palm of the hand over the other arm at about the elbow. Practice makes this a very graceful motion. The singing and noise ceases and the player opens up his hands. If the other has guessed rightly, the two sticks are tossed across the fire and the other side takes them up while the men just losing them become the guessers. Two Indians do the playing while two are selected on the other side to do the guessing. Whenever one side makes a point, which consists in a failure of the opponents to guess rightly, they mark it up by sticking one of the cedar sticks into the ground in front of them. When they lose they pull one out.

This game lasted from about 9 in the evening until 3 in the morning, and before it ended the Indians were nearly exhausted from their excessive singing and excited motions. Sweat poured off some of them in streams during the performance, and they divested themselves of everything but trousers and shirt. Some became very hoarse from the singing. Many of them rode to the scene on their ponies from distances of several miles and next day it was one of the topics of the reservation.