At the Midwinter Ceremony and again in the Green Corn Ceremony the bowl game is played. It is one of the Four Sacred Rituals of the Iroquois, the others being the Feather Dance, the Thanksgiving Dance, and the Personal Chant. In the game the moieties play each other. One moiety represents the Good Mind and the other, the Evil Mind. A form of the game (variation exists from community to community) involves a hundred beans as counters. The six peach stones, dark on one side, light on the other, are placed in a bowl which is struck on the ground. If all come up the same colour, the player's side takes five beans from the pile (or from those held by the opposing side after all the beans have been won by one side or the other); five of one colour allows the player to take a single bean. With any other score he must pass the bowl to the opposing side so they may play. Play continues until one side has amassed all hundred beans, thus winning the game. Here an eighteenth-century illustration (from Joseph-Franìois Lafitau's Moeurs des sauvages amÄriquains Paris, 1724) of the game being played is shown along with a bowl and set of peach stones (with one missing) from the Canadian Museum of Civilization's collections. Clan symbols are painted on the inside of the bowl. Wolf and deer represent one moiety; bear and turtle, the other.
Courtesy: Canadian Museum of Civilization, National Museums of Canada (S86-376) and Private Collection (Lafitau illustration)
