Description:
Bone, slightly curved, has three holes bored through it. Has a skin thong, knotted to each end and looped and knotted through middle. Two bone rings are strung on one loop.
References:
Sky Diver strategy puzzles, games and toys. 2003 (description on packaging for one of the games). St.John’s, Newfoundland. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. 2nd edition. 1949.
Innu Narrative:
“This is probably some kind of a game. These round things must be for pulling on the other side of the string or trying to put it on the other side on the other string. This is a game.” Pinamen (Rich) Katshinak
“This is a ring. You have to get it out and move it to the other side. Something hangs from here and they are loops. [You can’t untie it? – Damien Benuen question] No, you have to move it across without untying it. I can make it. It is called kamamiskutinikiniss (interchanging moving objects).” Tshishennish Pasteen
“I am not sure of the name. But if you can put rings on the other side of that other string, without taking the knot…. I don’t know the name, but it is a game.” Uniam Katshinak
Other Info:
This game resembles an old Newfoundland puzzle called “Sailor Crossing the Yardarm,” the goal of which is to “Move the sailor over to the other loop on the ship’s yardarm (7 steps)” (Sky Diver strategy puzzles, games and toys. 2003. St.John’s, Newfoundland). A “yardarm” is either end of a square-rigged vessel’s yard, where a “yard” is a long spar, tapering toward the ends, to support and extend a square, lateen, or lug sail (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary). Peter Armitage note