The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-10-28
they seemed to. think they had had their

They seemed to think they had had their
moneys worth of fun.
Once up North three Injuils from a
settlement twenty miles away came into
cur village and went up against three
Hurens at platter. They played all night
and half of the next day. The visitors
got rid of everything portable they had
except their clothes and finally they put
up their beaded leggings. The leggings
were added to the home players pile,
and the three losers went home bare
legged through three feet Of snow, but
in the best of spirits.
'tOut among the Iroquois, one night
young brave played hubhub until he lost
four horses, all his money, his gun and
knives and blankets and provisions and
his two wives. Then he started in on his
ornaments and got down to his clothes
and never stopped playing until he stood
as naked as when he came into the word.
'He didn't want to let up then. He
offered to stake himself, to play for his
servitude for certain length of time.
That wasn't an unusual thing among In
dian gamblers in the old days; but this.
young Iroquois' opponent wouldn't have
it, so the game had to STOP
whats hubhub?" asked one sof the
listeners, as the colonel stopped to nurse
his cigar.
"Oh, it's dice game. The whites
taught the Indians to use cards and poker
and monte are the great games now on
the reservations, but the whites didn't
teach the Indians to gamble The Indians
knew all about that long before they ever
saw a white face Each tribe has its
own games and they use good many of
them yet
''They are all variations Of the bone
games or straw games. The Northern In
n
wooden bowl and put dice in it, usually
six dice, though the number varied. Or
dinarily the dice were made of bone, col
ored differently on the two opposite sides.
"a crowd lined up, two lines facing
each other, and the two sides elected
casters or throwers. Some Injuns had
crack regulations as casters. They were
supposed to own very powerful fetiches,
or have some sort of magic power over
the dice.
"a caster took the bowl, thumped it
on the ground till the dice jumped and
then twirIed it fast so that the dice went
spinning around. Everybody set up a
| howl of invocation and charm Come
seben, come leben,' isn't in it with a
platter exhortation.
when the bowl stopped twIrllng the
side whose color was shown most in the
dice won. The system of counting points
varied. Sometimes it was tremendously
complicated. I've known a crowd of In
dams to stick at a platter game for a
week at a stretch.
"Hubhub was a dice game, too, but the
dice were thrown from the hand, more
IN crap fashion, and everybody yelled
Hub, hub. hub all the time. You could
hear hubhub game half mile on
The women were great on hubhub,
too The squaws were as daft over
gambling as the men were, In many of
the tribes, but they never had much
money to lose, SO they had to play low
limit.
Ten-cent monte is the squaw,s game
in the Southwest and penny ante poker
suits the Northern squaws, but the
braves are plungers.
"Out in Oregon the Indians play with
marked beaver teeth or muskrat teeth
instead of bone dice, and the Dakotas
used to use plum stones. The Utahs
liked to line up as if they were going
to play platter, but, instead. the couples
facing each other played together on
their own hook, throwing hand dice
THE Nez Perces Were gamblers from
! way back They wouldn't stop at any
thing Family or group gambling was a
, speciality with them, family against fam
| lily you know, and they didn't stick at
gambling themselves into slavery
There are other bone games besides
| the dice games. The Chinooks and Chill
kats' favorite game was - take two
| small bones, one marked and one un-
| marked, shuttle them in the hands, and
! then les.the SppoRent guess pndsr which
flnger Ssad in which hand the marked
tSAene was.
Almost all of the tribes had some game
| of that sort, and the'd play the foolish.
| simple game by the day and go wild over
| it. They are just natural born gamblers.
That's fact They'll bet on anything.