Traditional game unites tribes

On Saturday, the stick-game trail led to the Tulalip Reservation.

The traditional Native American game in which players try to bluff each other is popular enough that devotees attend tournaments every weekend all summer long. But Tulalip's Battle of Nations Stick Game Tournament was one worth driving the distance for, with $100,000 in total prize money, organizers and players said.

The $30,000 first prize lured 177 teams of nearly 1,000 players from around the country and Canada for the biggest tournament ever hosted in the U.S., organizers said.

The prize money persuaded Derek Knows His Gun to make the 16-hour drive from the North Cheyenne Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana, where he lives, for the tournament. But he spends all of his weekends with his "hand-game family."

"I've made some real friends," he said. "I consider them family, even though we're thousands of miles apart."

Organizer Rusty Farmer, a Colville tribe member, puts together tournaments every year, but he wanted to go big this time with prize money worth $100,000, double any previous tournament, he said.

Other tribes were interested in hosting, but Tulalip, which provided the prize money, won the bid.

The traditional game of bluff involves two teams that face each other.

The teams trade off two sets of "bones," one marked and one unmarked, which two players hide in their hands.

The rest of their team sing songs and bang on drums, trying to distract their opponents, who watch the players with the bones to try to identify the unmarked bone. Each team uses sticks to keep score. Teams win when they have all the sticks.

On Saturday, hundreds of people gathered on a hot, sunny day under a tent at the Tulalip Ampitheatre.

As they waited for official play to start midafternoon, two large teams played casually, singing and beating drums under a large white tent, while others ate fry bread and hamburgers. Once organizers announced teams, players grabbed camp chairs and hand drums and set themselves up in a row opposite their opponents.

The beat of drums — some slow and methodical, others fast and furious — and the chant of songs from dozens of tribes from around the country and Canada thundered through the air.

The traditional game once was a way for tribes to battle each other without going to war. These days, Farmer sees the game as a way to connect tribes with their oral culture and provide an alcohol- and drug-free zone for adults and kids. The stick game feels safe, he said.

"This is who we are," Farmer said.

Every Friday, Knows His Gun takes off after work at his tribe's finance office for a tournament in Montana, Idaho or Wyoming. He's been playing for as long as he can remember.

"When I'm singing, I'm letting go of a lot of things built up inside," he said. "It relieves a lot of stress."

He likes traveling and seeing other Native cultures. His is Great Plains culture — horse people, for example — while Washington has coastal tribes with cultures that revolve around salmon and fish.

"It's a totally different culture," he said.

Janice Peasley, a Colville tribe member who lives in Omak, near the Canadian border, drove to Tulalip just to watch this year, but she often plays in tournaments. She looks forward to seeing the same people.

"I look around and see so much familiarity, so many people I know," Peasley said.

Nicole Tsong: 206-464-2150 or ntsong@seattletimes.com