Fig. 524. The sāketān or roulette. (Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin. IV A 6854.)
Their way of managing the gain and loss is very curious. The first winner in the game must go to his hut and fetch anything he likes as a stake for the next winner, who in turn receives it, but has to bring a new stake, in place of this, from his hut. Thus the only one who loses anything is the first winner of the game, while the only one who wins anything is the last winner.
Fig. 525. The ajarorpoq or cat’s cradle. a representing deer; b, hare; c, hill and ponds.
The women are particularly fond of making figures out of a loop, a game similar to our cat’s cradle (ajarorpoq). They are, however, much more clever than we in handling the thong and have a great variety of forms, some of which are represented in Fig. 525.
As an example I shall describe the method of making the device representing a deer (Fig. 525 a): Wind the loop over both hands, passing it over the back of the thumbs inside the palms and outside the fourth fingers. Take the string from the palm of the right hand with the first finger of the left and vice versa. The first finger of the right hand moves over all the parts of the thong lying on the first and fourth fingers of the right hand and passes through the loop formed by the thongs on the thumb of the right hand; then it moves back over the foremost thong and takes it up, while the thumb lets go the loop. The first finger moves downward before the thongs lying on the fourth finger and comes up in front of all the thongs. The thumb is placed into the loops hanging on the first finger and the loop hanging on the first finger of the left hand is drawn through both and hung again over the same finger. The thumb and first finger of the right and the thumb of the left hand let go their loops. The whole is then drawn tight. A few other devices from Hudson Bay are represented by Klutschak (p. 139).
