Among the tribes living on the prairies the word used to indicate a "point" made in a "dice game" is derived from the same root as the word used to indicate an honor won on the field of battle.
Two examples of the class of games called "dice games" are here given: the first a Pueblo game played almost exclusively by men; the second a game found among the Omaha and kindred tribes and almost exclusively played by women.
1 PA-TOL STICK GAME _Properties_ .-- Three wooden billets; a flat stone about six inches in diameter or square; forty stones about as "big as a fist" or like pieces of wood; as many sticks for markers as there are players; counters to score the game.
_Directions_ .-- The three billets, called pa-tol sticks, are made four and a half inches long, one inch wide and half an inch in thickness; it is important that the wood from which they are made be firm and hard.

Two of the billets are plain on one side, on the other side a diagonal line is incised from the left-hand upper corner to a point about two inches below the right-hand upper corner; another diagonal line is incised from the right-hand lower corner to about two inches above the left-hand lower corner.

The third pa-tol stick has the same design on one side, and on the other side the design is repeated and an additional diagonal line incised from the right-hand upper corner to the left-hand lower corner.

It would be well to blacken all these incised lines in order that the designs can be readily seen during the playing of the game.
[Illustration] A circle, called the Pa-tol House, about three or four feet in diameter, is made by setting forty stones "about the size of a fist" so as to form the circumference.

Between every tenth and eleventh stone there must be an opening of four or five inches.