Description

Slahal (pronounced sle -`hal) is an indigenous very old, Pacific Coast Indian Gambling Game. The game is also called the "bone game", "stick game" or "hand game" and is still played today by many in the Northwest. It is played, either as a two player game or as a team game. It originally used small pieces of animal bone as game pieces but now many kinds of substances have replaced those bones. Pieces of antler having both a rounded side and a flat side were used while a grouping of separate sticks serve as the score keeping method. Each team begins with a set number of scoring sticks. The two game pieces (acting almost like dice) are picked up by a player and secretly arranged on a flat surface. This is done to the accompaniment of Native Music. The object of the game is to correctly guess where certain game bones are located in the opponents hand. During the playing of the music the pieces are arranged in different patterns, either both flat pieces down, both round pieces down or 1 going each way so that there are 4 possible combinations that can be accomplished. The opponent or the leader of the opposing team will motion to the other leader that they are ready to guess the direction of the unmarked bones. He uses a set of hand signals to make his guess. Each time he guesses incorrectly, he must throw one of his score keeping sticks to the opposing team. The team that eventually wins all of the opponents score keeping sticks wins the match

Nothing in this description was intentionally taken from the Elliott Avedon Museum & Archive of Games, a public funded Museum in Canada who would not give permission for the Museum's description of the game to be used. This compilation is taken from numerous other sources found.

This game was re-created by Bill Kuhnely in 1981.