I have been traveling to Las Vegas, NV; Kansas City, MO; St. Louis, MO and Rochester, MN.
Because of a bout of vertigo, I took a Meclizine and it made me sleep. I didn't get up until 3:00 p.m. today. I didn't like that. I slept the whole day away.
I attended language class in Hinckley on Tuesday. I invited my mother and my aunt along for this class. Those ladies talked about a game they used to play when they were kids and stated that they were not familar with this game.
The topic of the class was the BAHGAYSAY (Dish Game). We learned to play the game and was only supposed to respond in Ojibwe. English took over of course. We played the game three times and I was knowed out right away each game. We wagered twenty-five cents a game.
There are eight bone pieces to the game, one woman, one fish, two knives, four spots or buttons which are made out of bone. One side is clear the other side is painted red. The game pieces are approximately ¾ inches by 1/8 inch thick. There are 100 counting sticks, approximately 10 inches by ¼ inch thick. The bowl is made out of wood and is 2 to 3 inches high and about 6 to 8 inches in diameter. Two to six players can play.
To start, appoint a banker to handle the sticks, each player pays an ante. The players then start with a shake of the bowl and acquiring points, this is the qualifying round. When all the sticks are gone from the banker, the game begins. If any player does not receive any sticks, he or she must pay the ante again and sit out the rest of this game
Each player takes a turn and if the player acquires a point they get another turn.
The points consists of
Lady – 50 points
Fish-20 points
One knife – 15 points
Two knives – 30 points
One spot – 1 point
Two spots-2 points
Three spots – 3 points
Four spots – 4 points
All items one color – 8 points
The winning player receives sticks from each player based on the number of points won.
As the game goes on and one player does not have enough to pay, let’s say a fish (20 points) was won and the player only has 4 sticks left then that is how much sticks all the players have to pay the winning person. When a person has no sticks left he or she is out other game. When there are only two players left bot5h players get 25 sticks each. The game is played until one player wins all of the sticks.
Those old ladies enjoyed the class and are looking forward to next week.
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Boozhoo:
ReplyDeleteWhat a nice thing to do. I don't know very much about this game but did see it played by some Mille Lacs folks once. Was very interesting. It would be fun to play this game with kids, especially having them use all of the Ojibwe language terms such as ikwe/mindimooyenh, mookomaan, giigoonh, etc. I think those people playing the game called the lady "ikwewish", it was pretty funny everytime it came up :)
I have played this game numerous times with students. It is a good way to utilize numbers and social interaction of game play words. I learned it a little differently. I have a word list I use. It would be a good one for flash card software. The Minnesota Historical Society's photo archieve has a bigese game with something like 18 game pieces. I have one that came from the old Port Mille Lacs. The bowl is large and hand carved and the pouch that holds the games pieces was made by Mille Benjamin when she was just a child. It has touched many hands. And felt many smiles.
ReplyDeleteWaabishkimakwa,
ReplyDeleteIt was fun to watch my mom and aunt play the game. They now are looking forward to attending the next class. My ni-maamaa makes me laugh because her one goal was to learn how to say "moon". She couldn't remember the word and then she challenges how the word is told to her. Now the word she wants to learn is buffalo and a friend stopped over at my house when my mother was there and I asked my friend how to say "buffalo". My friend said this how she was told to say it and of course, my mom laughs and her interpretation of what my friend said was "moo cow" and made the comment that she will find out at language class on Tuesday. She always says that she doesn't know who to say something but she really does.
"who" is supposed to be "how" in the last sentence - sorry.
ReplyDelete