Stick To It: Pacific Coast First Nations Made Gaming a Fine Art
by Lori Henry
For the Haida of British Columbia and southern Alaska, gaming is more than a popular pastime. The decorative gambling sticks prized by the coastal First Nations for generations are coveted as well today by museums and collections as works of art.
“Some may be decorated almost like miniature totem poles,” explains Shawn Edenshaw, a Haida jewellery carver who comes from a family of renowned artists (his great great grandfather was Charles Edenshaw and his father was Jim Edenshaw). “Most are highly personalized.”
Gambling sticks preserved from the turn of the century and earlier often depict birds in flight and killer whales. Some were inlaid with copper or abalone shell, wrapped with carved shamanic symbols.
Although card bones have gained popularity in recent times, older gambling sticks generally were made of hardwoods such as alder, birch, yew and cedar. And gaming among the grandfathers is said to have been intense at times. Some gamblers, in fact, happily gabled away their most prized possessions. If they didn’t, they often gave away treasures at traditional potlatch ceremonies.
“In the olden times, the gambling game was quite a bit more serious,” Edenshaw says. “You could bet anything from your harvesting grounds to your cedar standings – where we collect our cedar bark – or the trees themselves. Territories, hunting grounds, canoes… just about anything could go up at a good gambling session.”
How it was played
Two teams would face up with a cache of 40 to 60 painted, carved wooden sticks or bones. Each team would have a blank piece, called the dijil, or bait, which one of the players would try to conceal from the other team by mixing it with the other sticks. The implements might be shuffled beneath a mat or behind a player’s back as his teammates danced or sang in an attempt to distract their opponents.
The opposing team then would have to choose which hand they thought the blank stick or bone was in. If they were wrong, they got nothing. If they were right, they collected the bundle of sticks. On and on the game went through numerous rounds until one of the players had no sticks left.
Today, bones have largely replaced sticks, but the essentials of the game remain the same.
“It’s more or less a game of deception,” Edenshaw says. “You have two bones that are fairly small. One’s marked and the other isn’t. Basically, you have to guess which one’s marked. One person actually holds the bones, switching them up, while different people from your team try to distract the other team. There are actual dance moves that teams use to draw attention away from the guy with the bones.”
Gambling sticks and bones vary depending on family, tribe and maker, and may be kept in deerskin or caribou skin bags painted with iconic animal designs. Only a limited number of antique gaming implements are in museums around the world. Although some families managed to hide their treasured objects, others were lost or confiscated by governing authorities after European contact.
Although Haida lifestyle has changed over the centuries, gambling games are still going strong, “especially during the summertime,” says Edenshaw. “We still take tribal journeys by canoe, paddling from village to village. Usually at night, when we arrive in a village, we have dinner and then later perhaps certain ceremonies. But more often than not, we host a game and bet anything from money to paddles.”
Best of all, Edenshaw says, “it’s still a lot of fun.”
This article first appeared in Carnival magazine.