The Devil's picture-books

by Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer

Plate 19.

A complete set of Haida gambling-sticks is also to be found in the National Museum; and casts of the carvings have been carefully taken on plaster, which displays the shape of the figures more plainly than the curved surfaces of the sticks can do. Thirty-two of these cubes compose “a pack,” and these are contained in a leather pouch. The game is usually played by a number of persons, who squat on the ground in a circle around the dealer, who places the sticks in front of him under a pile of shavings or shredded cedar bark, and draws them out with great ceremony and hands them to the players, who receive them with grunts, cries, and other uncouth noises. Each stick has its value; and they are passed with great rapidity from one to the other, the players staking considerable amounts on the game.

These cubes are made of spruce, about six inches long and half an inch thick; on them patterns of birds, animals, fish, men, and other devices are cut. The designs necessarily adapt themselves to the curved surfaces, and on some are repeated, so that when the stick is held upright the same pattern is seen back to back. This arrangement is almost always followed, although there are exceptions to the rule. What the designs mean and what their value is no one seems to know, but it is quite evident that they are Totemic devices; and these gambling-sticks are probably the most peculiar contrivances that have ever been invented to take the place of the pictured cards or the graven chessmen, and though not to be considered as a link between the two, certainly contain characteristics peculiar to both.

They may be classed into suits, which can be divided as follows: Figures, Devices, Animals, Fish, Birds, and Reptiles or Insects.

The suit of Figures has eight sticks. The first one is a man crowned, and holding in his right hand a fan, which seems to be a strange attribute when the climate of Queen Charlotte’s Islands is considered. The carving on the second cube resembles that of a man seated, and leaning his chin on his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. Two semicircles over the head may represent a hat; fifteen notches placed on each side of this figure may show its value. Number three displays a seated figure, with what seems to be the soles of its feet turned outward; four circles cut beside the figure may denote its worth. The fourth cube represents a seated figure in profile, with one hand spread out to show the thumb and four fingers. This stick has no marks to denote its value, unless four notches deeply cut in its back may take their place. The fifth stick is an interesting one, as it seems intended to show both the face and back of the figure. Over the head are two semicircles resembling those on number two. The hands hang on each side, each one having but three fingers and a thumb. The carvings on number six contain devices which resemble the lotus-flower. In a circle is a human face, the head surmounted by the semicircular cap. Number seven shows two grinning faces without bodies, but with arms and large hands displayed with the palms out. Two large chevrons divide these devices, which are cut across the stick, and not, as the others are, up and down its length. The eighth carving represents a hand with four well-shaped fingers and a thumb. Certain notches and cuts which surround the hand are undecipherable.

Plate 20.

The eight succeeding cubes contain strange devices, which seem to represent fingers, eyes, teeth, etc., but which are confused and meaningless to the uninitiated. Number seventeen, on the contrary, shows a spirited and lifelike carving of a beaver; and the next one a strange-looking monster, with a large mouth and huge teeth. The nineteenth cube has on it the head of some unrecognizable beast with a very long snout; and the twentieth, a ferocious-looking, large-mouthed animal. In cubes twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, and twenty-four the carvings resemble fish; twenty-two, in particular, shows a clever representation of a huge fish, and also a duck. Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, and twenty-eight call to mind birds; the twenty-sixth cube, in particular, showing most plainly the head, wings, and claws of what may be intended for an eagle. The stick which is numbered twenty-eight has on it a carving of a bird perched beside a nest which contains four fledglings.

The last four sticks are as well carved and deeply cut as any of the others in the pack, number twenty-nine bearing a spirited cut of a beetle; but the others cannot be as easily deciphered. The carvings of the beaver, the eagle, and the beetle represent these creatures in an erect or upright attitude, instead of the one natural to the animal. Whether this has some peculiar significance or not remains to be proved.