Games

The Delaware were fond of sports: foot races, lacrosse, shinny, wrestling, jumping, hopping, lifting or throwing stones, shooting or throwing arrows. They had a game of dice in which they gambled on the throw of a certain number of flat bones or oval cherry stones painted black on one side and yellow on the other. They had also something like a modern card game, played with pieces of reed.

The famous moccasin game was played on the night before a funeral. A ball was hidden under one of four moccasins lying on a deerskin. If the ball was found under the first or the fourth moccasin turned up, it counted in the tally for the finder. If, however, it was turned up at the second or third try, it counted for the side that had hidden it, which then had the right to hide it again. The side that one three times in a row won a game. The number of games to constitute a match was determined in advance by agreement between the players. Sometimes whole villages played, one against the other, gambling large quantities of goods on the outcome. The Indians were good losers. It was a saying among the Iroquois in such contests that the loser won a moral victory because his failure helped him cultivate humility.

Source: “Indians In Pennsylvania”, 1993
by: Paul Wallace of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission