Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884

by Myron Eells

The more prominent of these are gambling, betting, horse-racing, potlatches, and intemperance.

Gambling is conducted in three different native ways, and many of the Indians have also learned to play cards. The betting connected with horse-racing belongs to the same sin. Horse-racing has not been much of a temptation to the Clallams because they own very few horses, their country being such that they have had but little use for them. Nearly all of their travel is by water. The Twanas have had much more temptation in this respect.

One of the native ways of gambling belongs to the women, the other to the men: but there is far less temptation for the women to gamble than there is for the men, because summer and winter, day-time and evening, there is always something for them to do. But with the men it is different. The rainy season and the long winter evenings hang heavily on their hands, for they have very little indoor work. They can not read, and hence the temptation to gamble is great.

Gambling Bones.

One mode of gambling by the men is with small round wooden disks about two inches in diameter. There are ten in a set, one of which is marked. Under cover they are divided, part of them under one hand and the rest under the other, are shuffled around, concealed under cedar-bark, which is beaten up fine, and the object of the other party is to guess under which hand the marked disk is.

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.

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.