The Culture of the Luiseño Indians, by Philip Stedman Sparkman, [1908], at sacred-texts.com

p. 212

GAMES.

The chief gambling game of the Luiseños, tepanish, Spanish pion, is played with four small pieces of bone and four of wood dyed black. Fifteen sticks of wood about a foot long and of the thickness of a lead pencil are used as counters. Each pair of the pieces of bone and wood is tied to the ends of a doubled string about a foot long. These pieces of wood and bone represent whites and blacks. There are four players on each side. The four who play on one side each take a white and a black piece and sling them to their wrists by the strings, concealing their movements under a blanket or other covering. One of the opposing players then guesses in which hand the white pieces are held. Should he guess all four correctly, his opponents do not take any of the counters; should he guess three correctly, they take one; should he guess two correctly, they take two; should he only guess one correctly, they take three; while should he miss all four, they take four counters. The players whose white pieces are not guessed continue to hide them, their side receiving one counter for each mistaken guess, until the last piece on the first side is correctly guessed. The four players of the opposite side then take the sticks and bones, and one of their opponents guesses in which hand the white pieces are. This is kept up until one side has all the fifteen counters, thus winning the game.

A ring-and-pin game, chehut, is played with a string of the large acorn-cups of the Valparaiso oak. These are hollowed out and strung on a string which is tied to the larger end of a pointed stick. As many as possible of the string of cups are caught on the pointed end of the stick.