#chunkey

Chunkey

Chunkey (tchung-kee) is a Native American game involving a rolling disc (or ring) and two teams of players who score by throwing their sticks to land as close to the disc as possible. The game is thought to have originated at Cahokia c. 600 CE, was popular among many Native nations, and is still played today.

Vie et Mort de Sweet Medecine

Vie et mort de Sweet Medicine est un conte cheyenne sur le grand prophète et législateur Sweet Medicine qui reçut les quatre flèches sacrées, la structure du gouvernement et les règles de la société de Maheo, le Sage d'en haut, et prédit la venue du cheval, de l'homme blanc, et la perte du bison et des terres du peuple.

Thanks to Jim Theler, Connie Arzigian, and Kathy Stevenson for this week’s post – 

Throwback Thursday - A Chunkey Stone and a Bottle 

In 1991, construction crews were busy at the Gundersen site (47LC394) in La Crosse. This late precontact Oneota site was known to have the potential for features and perhaps burials, so Dr. Connie Arzigian and an MVAC crew were on hand. As one of the workers was stripping soil, Connie stopped him to check out some material being exposed. Connie says, “He jumped down and we were both looking on the ground and in the spoil piles, when I pulled out a historic bottle and he pulled out a chunkey stone. We traded, so we both ended up pretty happy.” This chunkey stone is now on display at MVAC on the UW-La Crosse Campus, and may be viewed when the Covid pandemic threat is over. 

Chunkey stones were used in a ritualized game by society's elite among late pre-Columbian Mississippian societies. They are a rare artifact at Oneota sites. A chunkey stone very similar to the Gundersen specimen is shown on Page 111 and a chunkey stone player effigy pipe on page 109 of Hero, Hawk and Open Hand (2004). 

2004  Townsend, Richard F. and Robert V. Sharp (editors) Hero, Hawk and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South. The Art Institute of Chicago in Association with Yale University Press, New Haven and London. 

The Life and Death of Sweet Medicine

The Life and Death of Sweet Medicine is a Cheyenne tale of the great prophet and law-giver Sweet Medicine who received the sacred Four Arrows, structure of government, and rules of society from Maheo, the Wise One Above, and predicted the coming of the horse, the white man, and the loss of the buffalo and the people’s land.

The Girl Who Was the Ring

The Girl Who Was the Ring is a Pawnee legend committed to writing by the anthropologist George Bird Grinnell (l. 1849-1938) in his work The Punishment of the Stingy and Other Indian Stories (1901). The story highlights the Native American values of community, teamwork, and personal responsibility.