The Florence tribune., 1897-10-09
NATIONAL GAMES.
Antiquity of Many of Modern
 Times.
Poker Played in Persia in Ancient Simes-Indians had ''Layouts" Be- fore Columbus Landed in
 America.

Mir. Stewart Culin, director of th' Museum of Archaeology and Paleontot ogy of the University of Pennsylvania whose advance articles on the work nc is compiling on the games of the world has attracted so much attention, has been spending a few days at the Na. 1 tional Museum in pursuit of bis stud ies. For the past eight years Direct3I 1 euiin has been collecting tlats and sis ss- imens of games which are played by aH the nations of the world, and has alsC made as complete a collection as possi- i ble of specimens extant of the games played by the most ancient peoples
 Games generally" said Mir. Culin, "are remarkable for their similarity which extends practically to identity, in all parts of the earth, in all times and among people of the highest and the lowest culture. Any inferences in ref erence to the contact of races and mi grations must be made with extreme caution, as we find pretty much the same games everywhere. The games of amusement played at the present day by civilized people are clearly survivals of divinitary rites, this fact being shown by the position which all games occupy among the people whom we call savages. The more complicated games, such as playing cards, appear to have direct relations with the diyinitary calendar. And the counting boards or cables, upon which pieces of wood are moved, as in backgammon or chess, have similar relations.
 "The collection shown at Atlanta, while occupying a great deal of space and apparently diversified in character, merely represented an attempt to illus trate the development of two types of games which are represented to-day by playing cards and chess. In the course of these Investigations it is shown that in a sense playing cards in one form or another are practically uni versal, and were known to many of the tribes of the American continent ante dating the discovery. Their most high ly artistic form occurs in the gambling sticks of the Indians of our northwest aoasf. These gambling sticks. t is dem oustrated, were derived from arrow shaftments marked with embleIns of place and personality ----'--s
 sThe cards of northeast Asia. such as are used in Corea, reveal precisely the same origin as these arrow Hhaftments. Chinese cards connect with them, and our own cards may be regarded as The legitimate issues of the same series"
 Incidentally in the collection num- Der of highly artistic packs of playing cards are exhibited, intended to illus trate the ancient and existing cards of the principal nations. A Persian set among the oriental cards is of strik-. ingly artistic beauty. The card pieces are painted with delicate miniatures ex- ecuted upon ground of gold foil Gu, riously enough, the game played with them is our familiar game of poker.
 Gen. A. Houtum-Schindler, of Teher- an, in reply to letter. of inquiry, has. furnished the following account of the Persian game: The game is called As" and is exactly like poker, but without any fushes or sequences. There are four players and each player gets five cards, dealt to the right. The deal CT puts down a stake. The first player then looks at his cards; if he sgoes" he says "di damF q have seen), and he covers the stake or raises it. If he does not wish to play he says 'Nadi dam" q have not seen),. and throws away his cards.
 He may also Ego" without looking at his cards, that is, in poker parlance, '.straddles," and says ''Nadid di dam" (not seeing, have seen). The second playex Ii he wishes to play, must cover the stakes, and can also raise. The third player and the dealer then act in the same way, just as in poker, and hen the stakes of all players are equal and no one raises any more, the cards are turned up and the player holding the best hand wins the stakes. The hands in the order of their value are three of a kind and a pair, full, three, ace, king, etc; two pair, aces | highest; one pair, aces highest. When 1 two players have the same pair of pairs, the other cards decide. For instance, a pair of kings, ace, soldier, and some card of little value. Blufing is a feature of the game and is called zadam, literally, Fire of gun"
 Backgammon is one of the few class ical games to which the present day attains. It is extremely interesting l from the fact that it is identical with the Roman gaming, dice being cast from dice box into little tower, the Turiccula of the classical writers. Tn the museum a backgammon board is shown from the Malay peninsula, whicl is used in game identical with oul own. A Syrian specimen is beautiful ly inlaid with tLsk ~s=pearl.
 Modern ingenuity" said MT. Culin cannot be said to have risen to the point of inventing a game. All games were invented ages and ages ago, and it is to be questioned whethera a single application for patent upon the ides of game would be granted in our pat ent office were the history of primitive games fully known and accessible Washington Post.