![Slahal bones](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Slahal_bones.png)
Slahal (or Lahal) is a gambling game of the
indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast are composed of many nations and tribal affiliations, each with distinctive cultural and political identities. They share certain beliefs, traditions and prac ...
, also known as stickgame, bonegame, bloodless war game,
handgame
Handgame, also known as stickgame, is a Native American guessing game, in which marked "bones" are concealed in the hands of one team while another team guesses their location.
Gameplay
Any number of people can play the Hand Game, but each team ...
, or a name specific to each language.
[Hill-tout, Charles. "Salish People: Volume II: the Squamish and the Lillooet". Talonbooks, 1978. ] It is played throughout the western United States and Canada by indigenous peoples. Traditionally, the game uses the shin bones from the foreleg of a deer or other animal. The name slahal is a
Chinook Jargon word.
The game is played by two opposing teams. There are two pairs of "bones", one pair with a stripe and one without. The game also uses a set of scoring sticks (usually ten)
and in some areas a "kick" or "king" stick—an extra stick won by the team who gets to start the game.
The game starts with each team dividing the scoring sticks between them, and one team receiving the four bones. Two individuals from that team take two bones each, one striped and one unstriped, and conceal them in their hands. They swap the bones between their hands and each other, singing gambling songs while they do so. The opposing team then tries to guess the position of the unmarked bones.
[Burke Museum in Seattle Washington - Slahal Set from Puget Sound.](_blank)
Retrieved February 19, 2008. If they are correct, they take two of the bones; if they are wrong, they pass one scoring stick to their opponents.
When a team has won both pairs of bones, it is their turn to conceal them and the other team's turn to guess.
The game continues until a team runs out of scoring sticks, at which point the other team wins.
The game is usually accompanied by drumming and singing used to boost the morale of the team. The side that has the bones sings, while the other tries to guess. The musical accompaniment is also sometimes used to taunt the other team. Players and spectators may place bets on teams, or individual matches within the game between one guess and the other team's bone hiders.
Oral histories indicate that slahal is an ancient game, dating to before the last ice age. In the
Coast Salish
The Coast Salish is a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. They speak one of the Coas ...
tradition, the Creator gave stickgame to humanity as an alternative to war at the beginning of time. The game serves multiple roles in Native culture—it is at once entertainment, a family pastime, a sacred ritual and a means of economic gain through gambling.
See also
*
Spoof (game)
Spoof is a strategy game, typically played as a gambling game, often in bars and pubs where the loser buys the other participants a round of drinks. The exact origin of the game is unknown, but one scholarly paper addressed it, and more general ' ...
*
Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast are composed of many nations and tribal affiliations, each with distinctive cultural and political identities. They share certain beliefs, traditions and prac ...
References
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Gambling games
Guessing games
First Nations culture
Native American sports and games
Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest