19th C Native American "Ring and Pin" Game

A complete game set composed of a bone awl,  a triangular shaped piece of native tanned leather pierced with a great number of holes and 5 deer toe bones.  The deer toe bones are strung on a leather thong with the awl attached at one end and the pierced leather at the other end.  This game is common to a great number of Native American tribes so it is hard to identify who made this.  The pierced leather piece is very soft and may be buffalo as it has the very fiberous surface one sees on buffalo which would argue that it may have been collected on the plains.  There is a long section on the game and the variations in the pieces used in "Games of the North American Indians", volume 2 by Stewart Cullin which was printed in the 1902-1903 edition of the 24th Annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology.   

19th C
Sold #7430



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