CASE III.
BOWLING, BILLIARDS, CURLING, AND SHUFFLE BOARD.
The objects used to illustrate the games of Bowling, Billiards, and Shuffle Board were made for this exhibit by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company of Chicago, by whom they are displayed, and comprise miniature tables for these games of remarkable accuracy and beauty of finish. On the north side of the case may be seen the implements used in the game of Croquet as it is played at the present day. The first games of Croquet manufactured in the United States were made from an English sample in 1863. The Chicago Curling Club here displays a collection of representative objects, including three sets of Curling stones and the medals and trophies belonging to the club and its members.
CASE IV.
MERRELLS, FOX AND GEESE, CHESS, AND DRAUGHTS.
An attempt has been made to bring together as large a number as possible of the simple board games like Merrells and Fox and Geese, with the hope that they would throw light upon that much discussed question, the origin of the game of Chess. The Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Siamese, Malayan and Samoan forms of several such games are exhibited. It is curious to note that the peculiar board used in the Japanese Fox and Geese game, called Juroku Musashi, or “Sixteen Soldiers,” is the same as one from Peru for a similar game. The inference is that they are both of Spanish introduction, which seems to be confirmed by the statement that the Japanese game was first known in that country in the sixteenth century. Merrells is displayed in a board made in the Damascus house in the Plaisance, where the Syrians call it Edris, and in a diagram obtained from Chinese laborers from Canton, who call it Sám k’í, or the “Three Game,” as well as by European boards.
A Japanese board for that famous game which the Japanese call Go and the Chinese Wei k’i, or the “Game of Surrounding,” follows. This is the game which is often erroneously referred to as chess, in China. The Japanese name of this board, Go-ban, has furnished the name which we have applied to the simple game of “Go Bang,” which we also got from Japan.
A board and men for a highly developed game, somewhat like draughts, played by the Zuñi Indians of New Mexico, furnishes a striking object for speculation and research. The board is a square divided into 144 small equal squares, each of which is crossed by two intersecting diagonal lines. The moves are made one square at a time along those diagonal lines, the pieces being placed at the angles of the squares. Two or four persons play. They each start with six men, and their object is to get their men across to the other side and occupy their opponent’s places, capturing as many of his pieces as possible by the way. A piece is taken by getting it between two others, as in the modern Egyptian game of Seega, and the first piece thus taken may be replaced by an extra piece belonging to the player who makes the capture, which may move on the straight as well as the diagonal lines and is called the “Priest of the Bow.” This game, which was arranged and is exhibited by Mr. Frank Hamilton Cushing, is called A-wi-thlák-na-kwe, which he translates as “Stone warriors.” Mr. Edward Falkener, in his work entitled “Games Ancient and Oriental,” which he lent for exhibition here, has published a restoration of the ancient Egyptian game of Senat from fragments of Egyptian boards which have come down from 1600 B. C. The game as thus restored is in some respects similar to the Zuñi game, the men being taken as in Seega by getting them between two others. The Zuñi game, however, may be regarded as in advance of any other board game, even of our own civilization, until we come to the true game of Chess. Chess stands alone among games. We do not find the links that connect it with lower forms of board games, and the Indian game from which our own is derived almost without change is the source from which the many variants of the Chess game doubtless originated. Several of these offspring of the Indian Chess are shown in the north side of this case, including the chess games of Burma, Siam, the Malay Peninsula, China, and Japan. A Moorish board is exhibited with them, and European chessmen and boards follow. A finely carved ivory chess set represents the pieces that are made for export by the Chinese at Canton. Draughts, which in the opinion of Mr. Edward B. Tylor may be regarded as a modern and simplified form of Chess, now follow, and here are shown two sets of interesting German draughtsmen of the eighteenth century.
CASE V.
AMERICAN BOARD GAMES, GAMES OF LOTS, LOTTO, CHINESE LOTTERIES.
The games played on boards, like Merrells and Draughts, manufactured by Messrs. McLaughlin Brothers and E. J. Horsman of New York, and the Milton Bradley Company of Springfield, Mass., are found in this case. Many of them appear to have been suggested by the Oriental games such as are shown in the preceding collection.
These are followed by games of Lots, a class of games extremely common among the North American Indians. The Haida and other tribes of the northwest coast play with sticks which are painted and carved. According to Dr. Franz Boas the sticks are thrown down violently upon a hard piece of skin, and the object of the game is to pick out the unmarked sticks, which alone count. The designs on the sticks are of the greatest interest, and a set of plaster casts of a very finely carved set in the United States National Museum at Washington, which are displayed through the courtesy of Professor Otis T. Mason, exhibit these peculiarities. The wooden discs from Puget Sound are concealed beneath a mat, and the players endeavor to select a particular disc. Guessing games of various kinds were very general among our Indians. The two bones, one wrapped with thread, which were used by the Alaska Indians in such a game, are exhibited with similar bones from the Utes. They were held in the hands, the player guessing which contained the marked one. The balls of buffalo hair with which the Omahas play a similar game are also displayed, with the moccasins in which the object was sometimes concealed. These games were played with the accompaniment of songs. Miss Alice C. Fletcher exhibits the music of two of these gambling songs used by the Omahas, and in Dr. Washington Matthews’ “Navajo Gambling Songs,” a copy of which may be seen in this case, the songs sung in the game of Kêsitce, played with eight moccasins, in one of which a stone is concealed, are recorded. Among the Zuñis and Mokis, cups like dice cups were used to cover the ball. The Moki cups here exhibited have been used in a sacred game and then sacrificed with “plume sticks,” as is shown by the small holes with which they are pierced.
Games can be made to throw much light upon the social and political institutions of many peoples. This fact is rendered conspicuous in the implements for the Chinese lotteries which are shown in this series. They comprise the paraphernalia of the Pák-kòp-piu or “Game of the White Pigeon Ticket,” the Tsz’ fá, or “Character Flowering,” and the Wei Sing or “Game of Guessing Surnames.” In the first, the tickets are imprinted with the first eighty characters of the Tsin tsz’ man, or Thousand Character Classic, one of the elementary text-books of Chinese children. In the second, the writer of the lottery assists his patrons in their effort to guess the hidden character, by an original ode, in which it must be in some way referred to.