FN-Games of Chance

Introduction

(Last edited December 2019. In 2003, when this website was initially published, the term "First Nations" was a collective descriptor used in Canada in the same way that "Native Americans" is used in the United States. More recently the term "Indigenous Peoples" has become a preferred descriptor by many, in part because it includes First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples. )

With this website, we have two purposes:

to provide some meaningful and engaging contexts to enrich the classroom experiences that students may have with respect to mathematics, and
to support the building of cultural awareness and understanding by highlighting social games within the First Nations' cultures.

We begin with some comments that Dr. Lorna Williams has made based upon her familiarity with the hand game called "Lahal": (this link is presented within a comprehensive website exploring Secwepemc Pre-Contact Life )

When and where are these games played? (5MB)

The consistency of Lahal across North America (2MB)

Playing Lahal(8MB)

A clarification on the term "guessing" (4MB)

Other content on this site was gleaned from Stuart Culin's book entitled: "Games of the North American Indians: Volume 1 Games of Chance, 1902" This was a book written by a 19th century cultural anthropologist who directly observed gaming activities and also collected earlier observations from many sources. While many of the observations are colored by European biases and some may be considered disrespectful, they do provide a glimpse of the mechanics of the various First Nations' games in the 17th-19th centuries.

E.g., William Wood, writing of the Iroquois in 1634, reported (in Culin, 1902)

...two sorts of games, one called puim, the other hubbub. Hubbub was a game played with dice made from peach stone, one side of each seared black in the fire. Five stones were placed in a dish on the ground and as violently thumping the platter, the bones mount changing colors with the windy whisking of their hands to and fro, which action in that sport they much use, smiting themselves on the breast and things, crying Hub Hub Hub. They may be heard playing this game a quarter of a mile off.

Cullin describes two main categories of Games of Chance played by the First Nations peoples:

Cullin (from within an 1890s eurocentric context) concluded that:

The same games exist across widely separated nations
Variations are unrelated to linguistic stock
Variations are more commonly in the materials employed (e.g. Sticks, bones, pits, stones, animal teeth, etc.) than in the method of play
The oldest forms appear to come from a center in the southwestern USA and progressively change along lines north, northeast and east. Please note Lorna's comments on this topic under consistency. Also consider the impact that European immigrant actions must have had on First Nations cultures that cloud this issue.
No evidence that any of the games were imported into America, nor modified due to European influence.