Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884 — John Shaqi
Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884Eells, Myron
Religion
Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884
Eells, Myron
Clallam Indians -- Missions; Missions -- Washington (State); Skokomish Indian Reservation (Wash.); Twana Indians -- Missions
The other game of the men is with small bones, two inches long and a
half an inch in diameter, or sometimes they are two and a half inches
long and an inch in diameter. Sometimes only one of the small ones is
used, and sometimes two, one of which is marked. They are passed very
quickly back and forth from one hand to the other, and the object is for
the opposite party to guess in which hand the marked one is. An
accompaniment is kept up by the side which is playing by singing and
pounding on a large stick with smaller ones. With both of these games
occasionally the large drum is brought in, and tamahnous songs are sung,
so as to invoke the aid of their guardian spirits.
[Illustration: BEAVER’S TEETH FOR GAMBLING OF WOMEN.]
In the women’s game usually four beaver’s teeth are used, which have
peculiar markings. They are rapidly thrown up, and the way in which they
fall determines the number of counts belonging to the party playing. The
principle is somewhat the same as with a game of dice. Formerly they bet
large sums, sometimes every thing they owned, even to all the clothes
they had, but it has not been the custom of late years. When Agent Eells
first came to Skokomish, under orders from the Superintendent of Indian
Affairs he tried to break up the gambling entirely, but there were
hardly any Indians to sustain him in the effort. They would conceal
themselves and gamble, do so by night, or go off from the reservation
where he had no control, and carry on the game--so for a time he had to
allow it, with some restrictions; that is, that the bets must be small,
the games not often, but generally only on the Fourth of July, at great
festivals, and the like. Occasionally they have had a grand time by
gathering about all the Indians on the reservation together, both men
and women, and perhaps for four days and nights, with very little sleep,
have kept up the game.
On account of their want of employment in the winter and their inability
to read, probably the sinfulness of this sin is not so great with them
as with whites. Some good, prominent Indian workers have thought that it
was hardly right to proscribe a Christian Indian from gambling. I
learned of one Protestant church which admitted Indians without saying
any thing on this subject, but which tried to stop it after they were in
the church; but I could never bring myself to think that a church full
of gambling Indians was right, and this became one of the test questions
with the men in regard to admittance into the church.
When I first saw the infatuation the game possessed for them I felt that
nothing but the gospel of Christ would ever stop it. Among the Clallams
off of the reservation none except the Christians have given it up. On
the reservation within the
[Illustration: POTLATCH HOUSE, SKOKOMISH.
40 ft. x 200.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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