Recommended listening: Hopi Social Dances
Story
The Parowan Valley at the time of the maize harvest drew people from all over the West. Families and tribes from disparate villages gathered together to celebrate the harvest, making their annual pilgrimage to the valley. The festivities were an opportunity to meet friends, make marriage matches, exchange goods, offer thanks to the gods, and perhaps above all, to have a good time.
A thousand years ago, the Parowan Valley and surrounding area were home to a group of people known to archaeologists as the Fremont. Bound together by a distinctive style of basketry, the Fremont were a diverse group who have puzzled the many scholars who try to study them. They were a farming people who also maintained some nomadic practices to adapt to unpredictable climates. Their petroglyphs across the northern Southwest show evocative images of horned figures, herders, agricultural fields, moccasins, and warriors. While they show some similarities to the people of the great Pueblo sites like Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde and appear genetically related to some Pueblo people today, they also have linguistic links to the Plains Kiowa people, and they were largely displaced by incoming Numic-speakers like the Ute and Paiute centuries before European contact. Their mixed lineage coming down to the present can make them a difficult people to understand, since archaeologists can't easily employ ethnographic parallels to interpret the objects they find.
In spite of these challenges, the artefacts the Fremont left behind give us some idea of the lives they lived. They developed a more sedentary lifestyle when they started growing maize. As happened across much of North and South America, the adoption of maize came with changes to their social structure. In many Fremont societies, social stratification seems to have developed, with high-status men coming together to drink corn beer. The Fremont were spread widely across what's currently Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho and Wyoming. On special occasions, however, perhaps at times associated with the agricultural year like the corn harvest, they travelled great distances to come together. The Parowan Valley was perhaps their biggest gathering place. The valley is home to a group of archaeological sites known today as Parowan, Paragonah, and Summit, all of which show evidence for large-scale meetings of people from across the region.
And what did the Fremont do when they gathered together? One thing we can tell they did is gamble. Gambling was widespread across ancient North America. Unlike modern Western conceptions of gambling, which frame it mostly as a low-status, somewhat deviant leisure activity, gambling held great significance in many Indigenous societies. In more egalitarian societies like in the Northeastern Woodlands, gambling could serve as a means to redistribute wealth so that no one individual could hoard high-status objects. In other places, like Chaco Canyon, gambling might reinforce social stratification, with elites gambling together to circulate rare imports from Mesoamerica like parrots amongst themselves. It's even been speculated that in Chaco Canyon, many of the labourers who helped construct the canyon's Great Houses were enslaved after losing their freedom through gambling. Many Native American societies have stories about legendary gamblers from the past, and these stories contain lessons about good and evil, maintaining balance, and the dangers of greed. There is often a sacred dimension to gambling in these stories too. In fact, there are some Indigenous people today who see continuity between their ancient gaming practices and the modern phenomenon of tribal casinos, although there is by no means a consensus about the relationship between the two forms of gaming.
Judging by the large quantity of gaming pieces found in Fremont sites, the Fremont were avid gamblers. Hundreds of gaming pieces have been found in the Parowan Valley, by far the most found in any Fremont area. Many of the pieces are similar to those found in a more recent historical context, documented in the 19th and 20th century by white American collectors. In particular, the Fremont gaming pieces resemble the dice pieces of historical women's dice games. Both men and women have long played dice games and gambled with them, although in many tribes it was customary for men and women to play separately. The Parowan Valley dice are shaped pieces of bone which were probably manufactured by women in the valley itself. They are often found near high-status trade objects like turquoise and shell jewellery. On one side they are painted with hematite, a reddish pigment, just as many historical examples of Native people's game pieces are painted red on one side. Among some peoples, the painted and unpainted sides represent the duality of good and evil, while others assign genders or different animal names to each side.
The rules for dice games are complex and vary widely across the continent, but the scoring usually involves tallying up the decorated versus undecorated sides. Women could play individually or in teams, and the things they wagered on the game ranged from chores to exotic jewellery. The Fremont were probably a linguistically diverse group, and gaming was a great way to bring together people from different language traditions because you didn't have to speak the same language to share the game. Through their gambling, Fremont women facilitated the exchange of long-distance trade goods and also built relationships through fun and rivalry with women from other communities. Men had their own games which the Fremont probably played too, like the hand game which is a guessing game still played today by many Native Americans. In fact, in some places it was even recorded in historical times that men might wager their own wives, creating opportunities for intermarriages between groups. Men and women sometimes played against each other too, often with chores being wagered such as cooking or carrying heavy objects.
The young women in this illustration are playing a dice game. They've escaped from the hot sun in the coolness of a pithouse, the mostly subterranean houses where Fremont people typically lived. They're decked out in their finest jewellery, showing off what they have to wager and also probably dressed for religious ceremonies they will dance in later. A flat tray basket catches the dice as they fall. One woman watches eagerly, hoping for her opponent to roll badly, although the woman throwing the dice appears fairly confident in her luck. Gaming was sometimes accompanied by singing and dancing, so the two women in the foreground might be singing a special gambling song. In fact, a Kiowa woman in the 19th century was recorded as having this song, which came to her in a dream:
Hise' hi, hise' hi,
Hä' tine' bäku' tha' na,
Hä' tine' bäku' tha' na,
Häti' ta-u' seta' na,
Häti' ta-u' seta' na.
My comrade, my comrade,
Let us play the awl game,
Let us play the awl game,
Let us play the dice game,
Let us play the dice game.
The Kiowa woman who sang this said that the song was given to her in a dream. She found herself in the spirit world and met a group of her former girl companions and sat down with them to play their favourite dice games. Given the fight against genocide that the Kiowa were undergoing at the time, the song is a powerful statement of survival in the face of the gravest threats. In fact, this song was sometimes sung to accompany the Ghost Dance, a religious resistance movement that swept through Native societies at the end of the 19th century. The United States government tried to put an end to the movement with the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, but the Ghost Dance, and the nations who danced it, have persevered.
The persistence of Native gaming traditions demonstrates the resilience of Native communities in the face of genocide, and their success at maintaining links to their ancestors across generations of persecution. At the heart of gaming is the idea of people coming together to have fun. Just as the Fremont women laughed and sang while playing dice games together a thousand years ago, so too do Indigenous people continue to live joyful and meaningful lives in defiance of attempts to silence and stifle them.
A thousand years ago, the Parowan Valley and surrounding area were home to a group of people known to archaeologists as the Fremont. Bound together by a distinctive style of basketry, the Fremont were a diverse group who have puzzled the many scholars who try to study them. They were a farming people who also maintained some nomadic practices to adapt to unpredictable climates. Their petroglyphs across the northern Southwest show evocative images of horned figures, herders, agricultural fields, moccasins, and warriors. While they show some similarities to the people of the great Pueblo sites like Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde and appear genetically related to some Pueblo people today, they also have linguistic links to the Plains Kiowa people, and they were largely displaced by incoming Numic-speakers like the Ute and Paiute centuries before European contact. Their mixed lineage coming down to the present can make them a difficult people to understand, since archaeologists can't easily employ ethnographic parallels to interpret the objects they find.
In spite of these challenges, the artefacts the Fremont left behind give us some idea of the lives they lived. They developed a more sedentary lifestyle when they started growing maize. As happened across much of North and South America, the adoption of maize came with changes to their social structure. In many Fremont societies, social stratification seems to have developed, with high-status men coming together to drink corn beer. The Fremont were spread widely across what's currently Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho and Wyoming. On special occasions, however, perhaps at times associated with the agricultural year like the corn harvest, they travelled great distances to come together. The Parowan Valley was perhaps their biggest gathering place. The valley is home to a group of archaeological sites known today as Parowan, Paragonah, and Summit, all of which show evidence for large-scale meetings of people from across the region.
And what did the Fremont do when they gathered together? One thing we can tell they did is gamble. Gambling was widespread across ancient North America. Unlike modern Western conceptions of gambling, which frame it mostly as a low-status, somewhat deviant leisure activity, gambling held great significance in many Indigenous societies. In more egalitarian societies like in the Northeastern Woodlands, gambling could serve as a means to redistribute wealth so that no one individual could hoard high-status objects. In other places, like Chaco Canyon, gambling might reinforce social stratification, with elites gambling together to circulate rare imports from Mesoamerica like parrots amongst themselves. It's even been speculated that in Chaco Canyon, many of the labourers who helped construct the canyon's Great Houses were enslaved after losing their freedom through gambling. Many Native American societies have stories about legendary gamblers from the past, and these stories contain lessons about good and evil, maintaining balance, and the dangers of greed. There is often a sacred dimension to gambling in these stories too. In fact, there are some Indigenous people today who see continuity between their ancient gaming practices and the modern phenomenon of tribal casinos, although there is by no means a consensus about the relationship between the two forms of gaming.
Judging by the large quantity of gaming pieces found in Fremont sites, the Fremont were avid gamblers. Hundreds of gaming pieces have been found in the Parowan Valley, by far the most found in any Fremont area. Many of the pieces are similar to those found in a more recent historical context, documented in the 19th and 20th century by white American collectors. In particular, the Fremont gaming pieces resemble the dice pieces of historical women's dice games. Both men and women have long played dice games and gambled with them, although in many tribes it was customary for men and women to play separately. The Parowan Valley dice are shaped pieces of bone which were probably manufactured by women in the valley itself. They are often found near high-status trade objects like turquoise and shell jewellery. On one side they are painted with hematite, a reddish pigment, just as many historical examples of Native people's game pieces are painted red on one side. Among some peoples, the painted and unpainted sides represent the duality of good and evil, while others assign genders or different animal names to each side.
The rules for dice games are complex and vary widely across the continent, but the scoring usually involves tallying up the decorated versus undecorated sides. Women could play individually or in teams, and the things they wagered on the game ranged from chores to exotic jewellery. The Fremont were probably a linguistically diverse group, and gaming was a great way to bring together people from different language traditions because you didn't have to speak the same language to share the game. Through their gambling, Fremont women facilitated the exchange of long-distance trade goods and also built relationships through fun and rivalry with women from other communities. Men had their own games which the Fremont probably played too, like the hand game which is a guessing game still played today by many Native Americans. In fact, in some places it was even recorded in historical times that men might wager their own wives, creating opportunities for intermarriages between groups. Men and women sometimes played against each other too, often with chores being wagered such as cooking or carrying heavy objects.
The young women in this illustration are playing a dice game. They've escaped from the hot sun in the coolness of a pithouse, the mostly subterranean houses where Fremont people typically lived. They're decked out in their finest jewellery, showing off what they have to wager and also probably dressed for religious ceremonies they will dance in later. A flat tray basket catches the dice as they fall. One woman watches eagerly, hoping for her opponent to roll badly, although the woman throwing the dice appears fairly confident in her luck. Gaming was sometimes accompanied by singing and dancing, so the two women in the foreground might be singing a special gambling song. In fact, a Kiowa woman in the 19th century was recorded as having this song, which came to her in a dream:
Hise' hi, hise' hi,
Hä' tine' bäku' tha' na,
Hä' tine' bäku' tha' na,
Häti' ta-u' seta' na,
Häti' ta-u' seta' na.
My comrade, my comrade,
Let us play the awl game,
Let us play the awl game,
Let us play the dice game,
Let us play the dice game.
The Kiowa woman who sang this said that the song was given to her in a dream. She found herself in the spirit world and met a group of her former girl companions and sat down with them to play their favourite dice games. Given the fight against genocide that the Kiowa were undergoing at the time, the song is a powerful statement of survival in the face of the gravest threats. In fact, this song was sometimes sung to accompany the Ghost Dance, a religious resistance movement that swept through Native societies at the end of the 19th century. The United States government tried to put an end to the movement with the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, but the Ghost Dance, and the nations who danced it, have persevered.
The persistence of Native gaming traditions demonstrates the resilience of Native communities in the face of genocide, and their success at maintaining links to their ancestors across generations of persecution. At the heart of gaming is the idea of people coming together to have fun. Just as the Fremont women laughed and sang while playing dice games together a thousand years ago, so too do Indigenous people continue to live joyful and meaningful lives in defiance of attempts to silence and stifle them.
Artist's Comments
I started this in January so it was good to come back to it. The poses in this were really hard! I used this pose and this pose from SenshiStock as references. The women's outfits are based on the Pilling Figurines which are the only images I could find of Fremont women. It was the figurines that first got me interested in the Fremont a few years ago since they are so beautiful. Thank you to Sacha for help with drawing this one. ~ June 3, 2021
Resources
Want to learn more about Fremont women and about the history of women and Native American gaming? Here are some recommended resources.
"Parowan Valley Gaming Pieces and Insights into Fremont Social Organization" by Molly Allison Hall
This masters thesis goes in-depth about the gaming pieces found in Parowan Valley. It's where I got the idea for this illustration. Hall goes through and analyzes the pieces that have been found in Fremont sites for similarities to ethnographic and archaeological examples of gaming dice.
"Gaming in Fremont Society" by Joel C. Janetski
This chapter gives an overview about the evidence for gaming among the Fremont. Janetski argues that the Fremont probably had annual trade fairs akin to those in the Southwest, and that the closest archaeological antecedents to their gaming practices are among the Basketmaker II culture. He speculates that dice games may have travelled north with farming and ceramics. The chapter is part of the book Prehistoric Games of North American Indians: Subarctic to Mesoamerica, edited by Barbara Voorhies. There are many interesting essays in it about prehistoric gaming practices.
"The Sharing Tradition: Indian Gaming in Stories and Modern Life" by Eileen M. Luna-Firebaugh and Mary Jo Tippeconnic Fox
The Indigenous scholars who wrote this article highlight the continuities between ancient Native gaming and modern Native life. They emphasize the importance of sharing, storytelling, cultural transmission, cooperation, and economic redistribution in many Native gambling traditions. They also highlight the ways that Native gambling has historically been demonized and misunderstood by white Americans, with the notable exception of Stewart Culin's survey of hundreds of Native games in his 1907 Games of the North American Indians. Explorations of the relationship between traditional gaming and modern Native life in contemporary American Indian literature are also discussed. For an article on a similar topic that explains in more detail some of the conflicts over gambling in modern Indigenous societies, see also Paul Pasquaretta's "On the 'Indianness' of Bingo: Gambling and the Native American Community".
"Of Dice and Women: Gambling and Exchange in Native North America" by Warren R. DeBoer
In this article, DeBoer argues that women's dice games were a key mechanism of intergroup exchange among the Fremont. He makes the case that women were much more active agents of trade in American prehistory than has previously been recognised.
Games of the North American Indians by Stewart Culin
This book is the source of much of our knowledge about historical Native gaming practices, although many such practices have also been maintained to the present day by Native people themselves. The book meticulously documents historical and archaeological evidence of gaming and gambling up to its publication in 1907.
"Sociopolitical, Ceremonial, and Economic Aspects of Gambling in Ancient North America: A Case Study of Chaco Canyon" by Robert S. Weiner
Chaco Canyon was an important Ancestral Pueblo site contemporary to the Fremont gatherings in the Parowan Valley. In this article, Weiner combines archaeological and oral history evidence to argue that gambling was a mechanism through which Chacoan leaders integrated diverse communities, facilitated trade, accumulated wealth, perpetuated religious ideology, and established social inequality. Since the Ancestral Pueblo are better represented in oral history than the Fremont, it provides an interesting parallel case study.
"The Kiowa Odyssey: Evidence of historical relationships among Pueblo, Fremont, and Northwest Plains people" by Scott G. Ortman and Lynda D. McNeil
The connections I draw between the Fremont and the historical Kiowa are based on the arguments in this article. Ortman and McNeil argue that linguistic evidence demonstrates that Kiowa was among the languages spoken in the Eastern Fremont area, and that these people migrated to the Northwest Plains around the collapse of the Fremont culture in the 14th century, when the Fremont abandoned many of their sites and gave up farming. The evidence for a belief in human-bear transformation among the Fremont is particularly interesting.
"Climate and Diet in Fremont Prehistory: Economic Variability and Abandonment of Maize Agriculture in the Great Salt Lake Basin" by Joan Brenner Coltrain and Steven W. Leavitt
If you want to learn more about the way the Fremont experimented with maize agriculture at the plant's elevational and drought-tolerance limits, check out this article. The authors here look in detail at how the Fremont took advantage of climate change to farm maize but ultimately abandoned it after several centuries. There's also some interesting analysis of Fremont diet and health in this article. For example, the authors point out that degenerative joint disease was common in Fremont adults over 30, and that about a third of burials show evidence of nutritional distress. On the other hand, some elite men show high levels of maize consumption compared to the women buried with them, suggesting that they consumed maize beer akin to the South American chicha. You can read more about Fremont farming in this article.
"Fremont Basketry" by James M. Adovasio, David R. Pedler, and Jeff S. Illingworth
Whether or not the Fremont constituted a distinct cultural group has been a matter of great controversy among archaeologists. In this article though, the authors argue that the basketry of the Fremont was uniform enough to mark them out as being just as discrete as the Ancestral Pueblo. They also argue that Fremont basketry, a woman's art form, originated from local Archaic practices rather than being an import from the south. For some reason I can't find the link I downloaded this article from.
"Indian Dice Game" by CaliforniaWilderness on YouTube
In this video, you can see an example of a basket dice game still played today in California.
"Native American Traditional Games" by Montana Office of Public Instruction on YouTube
This video provides a great introduction to Native American games. Experts from different tribes explain and demonstrate the various games, which include the hand game (called guessing sticks) described in some of the above sources. The games are played as part of a junior ranger programme at the Historic Glacier Park Lodge in Montana.
"Parowan Valley Gaming Pieces and Insights into Fremont Social Organization" by Molly Allison Hall
This masters thesis goes in-depth about the gaming pieces found in Parowan Valley. It's where I got the idea for this illustration. Hall goes through and analyzes the pieces that have been found in Fremont sites for similarities to ethnographic and archaeological examples of gaming dice.
"Gaming in Fremont Society" by Joel C. Janetski
This chapter gives an overview about the evidence for gaming among the Fremont. Janetski argues that the Fremont probably had annual trade fairs akin to those in the Southwest, and that the closest archaeological antecedents to their gaming practices are among the Basketmaker II culture. He speculates that dice games may have travelled north with farming and ceramics. The chapter is part of the book Prehistoric Games of North American Indians: Subarctic to Mesoamerica, edited by Barbara Voorhies. There are many interesting essays in it about prehistoric gaming practices.
"The Sharing Tradition: Indian Gaming in Stories and Modern Life" by Eileen M. Luna-Firebaugh and Mary Jo Tippeconnic Fox
The Indigenous scholars who wrote this article highlight the continuities between ancient Native gaming and modern Native life. They emphasize the importance of sharing, storytelling, cultural transmission, cooperation, and economic redistribution in many Native gambling traditions. They also highlight the ways that Native gambling has historically been demonized and misunderstood by white Americans, with the notable exception of Stewart Culin's survey of hundreds of Native games in his 1907 Games of the North American Indians. Explorations of the relationship between traditional gaming and modern Native life in contemporary American Indian literature are also discussed. For an article on a similar topic that explains in more detail some of the conflicts over gambling in modern Indigenous societies, see also Paul Pasquaretta's "On the 'Indianness' of Bingo: Gambling and the Native American Community".
"Of Dice and Women: Gambling and Exchange in Native North America" by Warren R. DeBoer
In this article, DeBoer argues that women's dice games were a key mechanism of intergroup exchange among the Fremont. He makes the case that women were much more active agents of trade in American prehistory than has previously been recognised.
Games of the North American Indians by Stewart Culin
This book is the source of much of our knowledge about historical Native gaming practices, although many such practices have also been maintained to the present day by Native people themselves. The book meticulously documents historical and archaeological evidence of gaming and gambling up to its publication in 1907.
"Sociopolitical, Ceremonial, and Economic Aspects of Gambling in Ancient North America: A Case Study of Chaco Canyon" by Robert S. Weiner
Chaco Canyon was an important Ancestral Pueblo site contemporary to the Fremont gatherings in the Parowan Valley. In this article, Weiner combines archaeological and oral history evidence to argue that gambling was a mechanism through which Chacoan leaders integrated diverse communities, facilitated trade, accumulated wealth, perpetuated religious ideology, and established social inequality. Since the Ancestral Pueblo are better represented in oral history than the Fremont, it provides an interesting parallel case study.
"The Kiowa Odyssey: Evidence of historical relationships among Pueblo, Fremont, and Northwest Plains people" by Scott G. Ortman and Lynda D. McNeil
The connections I draw between the Fremont and the historical Kiowa are based on the arguments in this article. Ortman and McNeil argue that linguistic evidence demonstrates that Kiowa was among the languages spoken in the Eastern Fremont area, and that these people migrated to the Northwest Plains around the collapse of the Fremont culture in the 14th century, when the Fremont abandoned many of their sites and gave up farming. The evidence for a belief in human-bear transformation among the Fremont is particularly interesting.
"Climate and Diet in Fremont Prehistory: Economic Variability and Abandonment of Maize Agriculture in the Great Salt Lake Basin" by Joan Brenner Coltrain and Steven W. Leavitt
If you want to learn more about the way the Fremont experimented with maize agriculture at the plant's elevational and drought-tolerance limits, check out this article. The authors here look in detail at how the Fremont took advantage of climate change to farm maize but ultimately abandoned it after several centuries. There's also some interesting analysis of Fremont diet and health in this article. For example, the authors point out that degenerative joint disease was common in Fremont adults over 30, and that about a third of burials show evidence of nutritional distress. On the other hand, some elite men show high levels of maize consumption compared to the women buried with them, suggesting that they consumed maize beer akin to the South American chicha. You can read more about Fremont farming in this article.
"Fremont Basketry" by James M. Adovasio, David R. Pedler, and Jeff S. Illingworth
Whether or not the Fremont constituted a distinct cultural group has been a matter of great controversy among archaeologists. In this article though, the authors argue that the basketry of the Fremont was uniform enough to mark them out as being just as discrete as the Ancestral Pueblo. They also argue that Fremont basketry, a woman's art form, originated from local Archaic practices rather than being an import from the south. For some reason I can't find the link I downloaded this article from.
"Indian Dice Game" by CaliforniaWilderness on YouTube
In this video, you can see an example of a basket dice game still played today in California.
"Native American Traditional Games" by Montana Office of Public Instruction on YouTube
This video provides a great introduction to Native American games. Experts from different tribes explain and demonstrate the various games, which include the hand game (called guessing sticks) described in some of the above sources. The games are played as part of a junior ranger programme at the Historic Glacier Park Lodge in Montana.