Identifier: annualreportofbu1118891890smit (find matches)
Title: Annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Year: 1880 (1880s)
Authors: Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of Ethnology
Subjects: Ethnology Indians
Publisher: Washington : G.P.O.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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oser ap))earsin a nude condition before spectators. Then the winner will usually return at least a part of the clothing, with an injunction to play more and lose less. The young girls often play the game of taking an object and secret-ing it within the closed hand. Another is called upon to guess the contents. She makes inquiries as to the size, color, etc., of the object. From the answers she gradually guesses what the thing is. A favorite game, something like cup and ball, is played with the following implements: A piece of ivory is shaped into the form of an elongate cone and has two deep notches or steps cut from one side (Fig. 75). In the one next the base are bored a number of small holes and one or two holes in the upper step. The apex has a single hole. On the opposite side of the base two holes are made obliquely, that they will meet, and through them is threaded a short piece of thong. To the other end of the thong is attached a peg of ivory, about 4 inches 250 THE HUDSON BAY ESKIMO.
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long. The. game is that the person hohling the plaything shall, by adextrous swing of the ball, catch it upon the ivory peg held in the hand.The person engages to catch it a certain number of times iu succession, and on failure todo so allows theopponent totry herskill. The skull ofa hare is often sub-stituted for theivory ball, and afew jierforationsare made in thewalls of the skull Fig. 75.—Cup and ball. Koksoagin.vut. tO receive the peg. It requires a great amount of practice to catch the ball, as the string isso short that one must be quick to thrust the peg in before it describesthe part of a small circle. The children sometimes use a stick or other sharp-pointed instrumentto make a series of straight lines in the newly fallen snow and at thesame time repeat certain gibberish. This was at first very confusingto me, but a woman repeated the wordsand I guessed from her descriptionwhere the idea sprang from. These people had heard of the teach-ings of the Labrador missionaries (Mo

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