The Forks National Historic Site of Canada
Recreation
Gambling Sticks
"Gambling sticks" or "gaming sticks" were the playing pieces used in popular guessing-games of most indigenous peoples of Canada. While archaeological evidence has not been unearthed, it is known that "stick games" were played by the first nations who rendezvoused, camped, traded and socialized at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, known today as "The Forks." These nations included the Anishinaabe (Ojibwa, Saulteaux), Cree, Dakota (Sioux), Nakota (Assiniboine) and Mandan.
Originally, ten to more than a hundred gambling sticks could be used in a game, depending on the culture. They measured 10 to 51 cm (4 to 20 in.) in length and were made of maple, ash, spruce, willow, sumac, reeds, straw or even bone. Wooden sticks were neatly fashioned to a desired size and then smoothed with the plant called horsetail or scouring rush (Equisetum spp.). Some cultures created gambling sticks that were intricately carved, painted and inlayed with small pieces of shell or ivory. Each stick's markings determined its value and name. Carved decorative characters symbolically or graphically represented an animal form or natural object associated with the life of the people. Stick games were games of chance and calculation and the rules and the sticks used varied greatly depending upon the culture and the materials available.
Robert Houle's artworks are modelled after two sets of Tahltan [inhabitants of northern British Columbia] gambling sticks currently in the collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. The 21 bronze gambling sticks displayed here at The Forks, bear decorations relating to two of the four elements of nature; earth and water. Originally measuring 20-30 cm x 1-2 cm (8-12 in. x ½ - 3/4 in.) and painted with encircling lines and bans of different widths of black and red, these gambling sticks have been enlarged as "ceremonial" artistic renditions. Robert Houle intended that these gambling sticks to be tangible imagery embodying the meeting, trading and socializing activities that took place at The Forks. They illustrate the role The Forks played in the lives of the First Nations tribes over the millennia.
Credit :
Gift to Parks Canada, The Forks National Historic Site from the Winnipeg Art Gallery
Sponsored by Manitoba Lotteries Corporation
Supported by Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts