Fig. 75.—Cup and ball.
Koksoagmyut.
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 long. The game is that the person holding the plaything shall, by a dextrous 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 in succession, and on failure to do so allows the opponent to try her skill. The skull of a hare is often substituted for the ivory “ball,” and a few perforations are made in the walls of the skull to receive the peg. It requires a great amount of practice to catch the ball, as the string is so short that one must be quick to thrust the peg in before it describes the part of a small circle.
The children sometimes use a stick or other sharp-pointed instrument to make a series of straight lines in the newly fallen snow and at the same time repeat certain gibberish. This was at first very confusing to me, but a woman repeated the words and I guessed from her description where the idea sprang from.
These people had heard of the teachings of the Labrador missionaries (Moravians), all of whom are Germans, and as the Eskimo of that coast use the German numerals in preference to their own, the natives of that region have at some time repeated the names of those numerals to certain of the Hudson strait people and they have taught each other.
The names of the German numerals as sounded by the Koksoagmyut are as follows. The numbers are one to fifteen, consecutively:
Ái i; chu vái i; ta lái i; pi û´ la; pi li pi; tsék si; tsé pa; ák ta; nái na; tsé na; ái lu pûk; chu vái lu puk; ta lak si na; pi ûk´ si na, and pi lip´ si na.
