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Evidence for Set Dilth'
1 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.1587
Type Ethnography
Location 33°50'13.19"N,109°57'51.10"W
Date 1901-01-01 - 1901-12-31
Rules Forty stones, arranged in a circle, with a larger gap after every tenth stone. The gaps between the stones are the playing spaces. Two to four players; players sitting across from one another play on a team. One stick per player. Three sticks, each with one flat and one blank side and one marked side, used as dice. The throws are as follows: one marked side up = 2; two marked sides up = 3; all marked sides up =5; no marked sides up =10. Throws of 10 grant the player another throw. Teams play in opposite directions, starting from one of the larger gaps. When a player's piece moves past or onto the space occupied by that of the opposing team, the opposing team's piece is sent back to the starting space. The first team to circle the board three times wins.
Content "WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE. White river, Arizona. Mr Albert B. Reagan furnished the following account of the Apache stick dice game in a communication to the Bureau of Amer-
ican Ethnology in 1901 : This game is usually played by women only, occupying with it their leisure hours. They bet on it such things as beads, dress materials, and other objects of small value, sometimes even money. When money is bet it is put under the stone on which the sticks are cast. In preparing the field a spot of ground is leveled and a small flat stone is placed in the center. Other stones are then piled around this stone to form a circle 3 1/2 feet in diameter, with four openings, 10 stones being placed in each quarter of the circle, the openings corresponding with the northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest.
The stones, which are picked up in the immediate vicinity of the playground, are of various shapes and sizes. The stones being laid, a stick is placed in the opening at the northeast to indicate that this is the starting point. In counting,
a player moves his counting-stick as many stones from the starting point as he
has points to count, putting his marker in the space just beyond the last stone
counted, unless that count should end in one of the four openings, in which case
he puts it in the next preceding space. The stones in each section are numbered or named. Those in the two sections on the right of the starting point
are numbered from 1 on to the right, and those on the left of the starting
point in the same way toward the left.
The playing sticks are about a foot in length, and are the halves of green sticks
about 1 inch in diameter, the bark being left on the rounded side and the split
surface marked across its face with charcoal bands about 1 inch wide. In
throwing, the sticks are carefully held together in the hand, with the marked
faces either in or out. They are hurled, ends down, the hand being released
just before they strike, so that they are free to fall or bounce in any direction.
The counts are as follows : One marked face up counts 2 ; two marked faces
up, 3 ; three marked faces up, 5 ; three marked faces down, 10.
If the player scores 10, she throws again : otherwise she passes the sticks to
the next player. When a player makes 10, she always says yak ! and strikes the
center stone with the bunch of three play sticks sidewise before throwing them
again. The number of players may be two, three, or four, the last-named number being usual. When four play, one sits behind each section of stones, facing
the center. When more than two play, the two that face each other play as
partners. In moving their counting-sticks, partners always move them in the
same direction. The player of the east section and her partner, if she has one.
move around the circle toward the south, and the player of the north section
moves around toward the west.
If a player's count terminates at, or moves past, a place occupied by an
antagonist, she takes her opponent's counting-stick and throws it back, and the
latter must start again, losing all her counts.
A game consists of three circuits, or 120 points. Each time a player makes a
circuit she scores by placing a charcoal mark on a stone in her section.
Vocabulary : Set dilth', the stick game : set dilth' bed'-den-kak, let us play the
stick game; dSk, the sticks used in the stick game; gun-alsh'na, the game is
finished, won ; gun-alsh-na She, I have the game." Culin 1907: 88-89.
Confidence 100
Ages Adult
Spaces Outside
Genders Female
Source Culin, S. 1907. Games of the North American Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
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