Primitive Religions, and Folk-lore, including Games, are the subject of
a special section in the Anthropological Building at the Columbian
Exposition. This section, which is known as the “Section of Religions,
Games, and Folk-lore,” is located upon the main floor, where the exhibit
occupies a series of cases on the south side and a line of flat cases
which extend across the entire building.
Folk-lore is the name given to the material which has come down to us in
the sayings and customs of mankind. Its study, for which no special name
has been devised, is an important branch of the science of anthropology.
The chief object of the collection is to show things which illustrate
folk traditions and customs. The field being a vast one, the collection
has been practically restricted to the subject of games. The basis of
the collection was formed in the Museum of Archaeology of the University
of Pennsylvania during the past two years. The University’s collection
has been supplemented by exhibits from individuals and the leading
manufacturers of games in this country.
The objects are classified and arranged for comparative study, games of
the same general sort being placed together. They are contained in
twelve table cases running from the southernmost entrance on the west
side to the corresponding entrance on the east side. Puzzles and the
simple games of children commence the series.
CASE I.
PUZZLES, CHILDREN’S GAMES, MANCALA.
The ingenious objects which we designate as “puzzles” are represented by
about one hundred and twenty-five specimens exhibited by the Museum of
the University of Pennsylvania. They begin with a collection of East
Indian puzzles “invented” by Aziz Hussan of Saharanpore, among which may
be seen many types of puzzles that are common in Europe and America. The
Chinese puzzles of wood, bone, and ivory follow them. Chinese puzzles,
long a household word, are very limited in number. Those which are made
for export are invariable in form, and consist of the familiar “Ring
Puzzle,” the “Geometrical Puzzle,” and the “Dissected Cube.” Their
Chinese names are all descriptive, and the “Ring Puzzle,” which they
call “The Nine Interlinked Rings,” was probably borrowed by Chinese from
India. The number of types in the entire series of puzzles is
surprisingly small. The one that was revived some years since under the
name of the “Fifteen Puzzle,” and which was described by an English
writer some two hundred years ago, has suggested a large group. “Pigs in
Clover,” an American invention, is the most recent addition to the
world’s amusements of this character, and its wide diffusion and
popularity is shown here in a great variety of specimens from different
countries.
Some of the simpler amusements of children are suggested by the objects
on the north side of this case. Here are to be seen Mr. William Wells
Newell’s “Games and Songs of American Children,” and “The Counting-out
Rhymes of Children,” by Dr. H. Carrington Bolton, two books which may be
regarded as classical in their particular field. Mr. Pak Yong Kiu, of
the Corean Commission to the Columbian Exposition, has furnished the
following interesting addition to the collection of children’s
counting-out rhymes:—
Hau al ta
Tu al da
Som a chun
Na al da,
Yuk nong,
Ku chi,
Pol ta,
Chong kun,
Ko tu ra,
Biong.
The wide diffusion of the custom of using counting-out rhymes among
children, and the general resemblance they bear to each other, present
problems of curious interest.
Among the imitative games of children, there are few more interesting
than the Toros or mock bull-fight of Spanish boys. A wicker mask from
Madrid, representing the bull’s head, which is used in this sport, is
suspended beside this case, within which may be seen the toy _espadas_
or swords and the _banderillios_. Tops are shown to be of great
antiquity and of very general use over the earth. Their age is
illustrated by a wooden top from the Fayum, Egypt, discovered by Mr.
Flinders Petrie at Kahûn, belonging to 2800 B. C. They were common among
the American Indians, north and south. A number of balls of baked clay
and stone, which were whipped in a game on the ice, represent the
primitive tops of the Sioux, while a more recent Sioux top of wood with
a peg of brass shows foreign influences. Among the Omahas tops were
called _Moo de de ska_, a name which Mr. Francis La Flesche says is not
descriptive. The explorations conducted for the Department by Mr. George
A. Dorsey in Peru have contributed several interesting specimens to this
collection. Two prehistoric tops from Ancon are identical in form with
the ancient Egyptian top, while another from an ancient grave at Arica
is distinguished by a spindle, not unlike the modern tops of Japan. The
use of pop-guns among the ancient Peruvians is also shown by two
beautifully carved specimens of wood contained in a llama skin pouch,
from an ancient grave in Cañete valley. Popguns were used by many if not
all of the American Indian tribes. Among the Omahas the children made
them of willow branches, and then, by partly stopping one end, would
convert them into squirt-guns. The toy squirt-gun sold in the Chicago
shops is here shown beside the syringe from India used in the Hindu
_Holi_ Festival.
Jackstraws, which are known in England as “Spillikins” and in France as
_Les Jonchets_, are next in order. The peculiar Chinese name appended to
the Chinese specimens, “Eight Precious Things,” suggests the probability
that China was the country from which we derived them.
The remainder of this case is devoted to the implements for a game that
holds an unique position among the world’s games, and for which no place
could be found in the series that follow. It is variously played with
pebbles, shells, and seeds in holes dug in the ground, or upon a board
with cup-like depressions. The game appears to be found wherever Arab
influence has penetrated. It is very generally played in Africa, in Asia
Minor, and in India. Two boards are exhibited, one brought from
Jerusalem for the University Museum by Mrs. John Harrison of
Philadelphia, and another from the Gaboon River in Africa. The Syrians
in the Damascus house in the Turkish village in the Midway Plaisance
know it under the name of _Mancala_, and it is a favorite game with the
Chief of the Dahomey village, who frequently plays it with his son
before his hut in the Plaisance. Among the so-called Dahomeyans this
game is called _Madaji_, the board _adjito_, and the seeds which they
use, _adji_. It is a game for two persons. As played in Syria, there are
several forms of the game. One is called _lâ’b madjnuni_, or the “Crazy
Game.” Ninety-eight cowrie shells are used, which are distributed
unequally in the fourteen holes in the board, which is placed
transversely between the two players. The first player takes all the
pieces from the hole at the right of his row and drops them, one at a
time, in the first hole on the opposite side, and so on, continuing
around the board until the last one is let fall. He thereupon takes all
the pieces from that hole and distributes them one by one as before,
until, arriving at the last piece, he takes all the pieces again in his
hands. This is continued until the last piece dropped either falls into
an empty hole or completes two or four in the hole in which it falls. In
the latter case the player takes the two or four for his own, as well as
the contents of the hole opposite, and should there be two or four in
the next hole or holes to the one at which he stopped, he also takes
them with those opposite. The players continue in turn, and when the
game is finished the one gaining the highest number of cowries wins. If
a player’s last piece falls in an empty hole, his turn is ended. Skill
is of no avail in this form of the game, the result always being a
mathematical certainty, accordingly as the cowries are distributed at
the beginning.
CASE II.
BALLS, QUOITS, MARBLES.
The antiquity of the ball as an implement of sport is attested by the
balls found associated with objects used in other games in old Egypt,
where it was known at least 4,700 years ago. Games of ball are common
among savage and barbarous people, and ball games of Burma, Siam, India,
and Japan, as well as those of the North American Indians, are suggested
in this case. With the ball games are the sticks used in a widely
diffused game which we commonly know as “Tip-cat.” Tip-cat is played
with a block of wood, about six inches in length, which is struck with a
small club or bat and knocked into the air. The rules for playing are
somewhat complicated, and as far as they have been compared, appear to
be much the same all over the earth. The oldest specimen is from Kahûn,
Egypt, of 2800 B. C. Tip-cat is known by the Syrians in the Plaisance,
who have contributed the sticks they use in the game they call _Hab_. In
Persia it is called _Guk tchub_, “frog-wood,” a name given to it, like
our name “cat,” from the way the small stick leaps into the air. In
China the game is called _Ta-pang_, “to knock the stick,” and the
Chinese laborers in the United States call the “cat” _To tsz_, or
“Little Peach.” In Japan the game is called _In ten_; the small stick
_ko_, “son,” and the long one _oya_, “parent.” In India the game is
called _Gutti danda_; in Burma, _Kyitha_, and in Russian _Kosley_,
“goat,” a suggestive name like that of Persia and our own name, “cat.”
The wicker baskets or _cestas_ for the Spanish game of ball or _Pelota_,
now so popular in Spain, are next shown, with the flat bat used by the
Spaniards in ball games. A very ancient English bat for trap ball
appears with them, and these are followed by the implements used in the
current American and English ball games exhibited by Messrs. A. G.
Spalding & Bros. of Chicago. Cricket, Baseball, Football, Golf, Polo, La
Crosse and Lawn Tennis, Racket and Battledore and Shuttlecock, are
displayed in order, and with the last are exhibited the Zuñi Indian and
the Japanese form of this game and the Chinese shuttlecock, which is
kicked with the toes. The tossing games comprise Jackstones, Cup and
Ball, Grace Hoops, and Quoits, and ring games of various kinds, and
include the iron quoits _Rayuelas_, used in Spain. The stone quoit games
of the Zuñis, and of the Tarahumara Indians are also exhibited. The
North American Indian forms of the Cup and Ball game comprise the
_Ar-too-is_, or “match-making” game of the Penobscots, exhibited by
Chief Joseph Nicolar of Oldtown Me., and the Sioux game played with the
phalangal bones of the deer. The comparatively new game “Tiddledy winks”
follows, leading up to a recent German game called the “Newest War
Game,” in which the men or “winks” are played upon a board upon which
are represented two opposing fortresses. The games of tossing cowries
and coins are next suggested, with the game played by Chinese children
with olive seeds. Many natural objects are exhibited that are used by
children in playing games resembling marbles, to which artificial
objects they appear to lead. In Burma the seeds of a large creeper, the
_Eutada Pursoetha_, are employed in a game called _Gohunyin_, one of the
commonest forms of gambling known in that country. In Asia Minor,
knuckle-bones of sheep, which are often weighted with lead, are used in
the same manner, and in Damascus and the cities in connection with
marbles. Marbles themselves, in the varieties known to commerce, are
next exhibited.
CASE III.
BOWLING, BILLIARDS, CURLING, AND SHUFFLE BOARD.
The objects used to illustrate the games of Bowling, Billiards,
and Shuffle Board were made for this exhibit by the
Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company of Chicago, by whom they are
displayed, and comprise miniature tables for these games of
remarkable accuracy and beauty of finish. On the north side of the
case may be seen the implements used in the game of Croquet as it
is played at the present day. The first games of Croquet
manufactured in the United States were made from an English sample
in 1863. The Chicago Curling Club here displays a collection of
representative objects, including three sets of Curling stones and
the medals and trophies belonging to the club and its members.
CASE IV.
MERRELLS, FOX AND GEESE, CHESS, AND DRAUGHTS.
An attempt has been made to bring together as large a number as possible
of the simple board games like Merrells and Fox and Geese, with the hope
that they would throw light upon that much discussed question, the
origin of the game of Chess. The Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Siamese,
Malayan and Samoan forms of several such games are exhibited. It is
curious to note that the peculiar board used in the Japanese Fox and
Geese game, called _Juroku Musashi_, or “Sixteen Soldiers,” is the same
as one from Peru for a similar game. The inference is that they are both
of Spanish introduction, which seems to be confirmed by the statement
that the Japanese game was first known in that country in the sixteenth
century. Merrells is displayed in a board made in the Damascus house in
the Plaisance, where the Syrians call it _Edris_, and in a diagram
obtained from Chinese laborers from Canton, who call it _Sám k’í_, or
the “Three Game,” as well as by European boards.
A Japanese board for that famous game which the Japanese call _Go_ and
the Chinese _Wei k’i_, or the “Game of Surrounding,” follows. This is
the game which is often erroneously referred to as chess, in China. The
Japanese name of this board, _Go-ban_, has furnished the name which we
have applied to the simple game of “Go Bang,” which we also got from
Japan.
A board and men for a highly developed game, somewhat like draughts,
played by the Zuñi Indians of New Mexico, furnishes a striking object
for speculation and research. The board is a square divided into 144
small equal squares, each of which is crossed by two intersecting
diagonal lines. The moves are made one square at a time along those
diagonal lines, the pieces being placed at the angles of the squares.
Two or four persons play. They each start with six men, and their object
is to get their men across to the other side and occupy their opponent’s
places, capturing as many of his pieces as possible by the way. A piece
is taken by getting it between two others, as in the modern Egyptian
game of _Seega_, and the first piece thus taken may be replaced by an
extra piece belonging to the player who makes the capture, which may
move on the straight as well as the diagonal lines and is called the
“Priest of the Bow.” This game, which was arranged and is exhibited by
Mr. Frank Hamilton Cushing, is called _A-wi-thlák-na-kwe_, which he
translates as “Stone warriors.” Mr. Edward Falkener, in his work
entitled “Games Ancient and Oriental,” which he lent for exhibition
here, has published a restoration of the ancient Egyptian game of Senat
from fragments of Egyptian boards which have come down from 1600 B. C.
The game as thus restored is in some respects similar to the Zuñi game,
the men being taken as in _Seega_ by getting them between two others.
The Zuñi game, however, may be regarded as in advance of any other board
game, even of our own civilization, until we come to the true game of
Chess. Chess stands alone among games. We do not find the links that
connect it with lower forms of board games, and the Indian game from
which our own is derived almost without change is the source from which
the many variants of the Chess game doubtless originated. Several of
these offspring of the Indian Chess are shown in the north side of this
case, including the chess games of Burma, Siam, the Malay Peninsula,
China, and Japan. A Moorish board is exhibited with them, and European
chessmen and boards follow. A finely carved ivory chess set represents
the pieces that are made for export by the Chinese at Canton. Draughts,
which in the opinion of Mr. Edward B. Tylor may be regarded as a modern
and simplified form of Chess, now follow, and here are shown two sets of
interesting German draughtsmen of the eighteenth century.
CASE V.
AMERICAN BOARD GAMES, GAMES OF LOTS, LOTTO, CHINESE LOTTERIES.
The games played on boards, like Merrells and Draughts, manufactured by
Messrs. McLaughlin Brothers and E. J. Horsman of New York, and the
Milton Bradley Company of Springfield, Mass., are found in this case.
Many of them appear to have been suggested by the Oriental games such as
are shown in the preceding collection.
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: