The paint is red and black.

The paint is red.

The paint is red.

Lehal or slahal is the chinook jargon name by which a rousing, still popular gambling game is known throughout the coast. The gaming pieces are bone cylinders from which comes the usual English name "bone game." It is played with two pairs of bone cylinders, one of each pair plain, the other decorated with an encircling band of black or a design of lines and nucleated circles. A set of counting sticks, usually ten in number, with a specially marked eleventh now called a "kick stick," completes the equipment. The two teams, of from three to a dozen players each, kneel facing each other in parallel lines, each member holding a short baton with which to keep time on a plank that lies on the ground in front of his team. Two players on one team each handle a pair of bones, and one player on the opposing team tries to guess the positions of the two plain bones. Exuberant gambling songs are sung by the team holding the cylinders, while their opponents try to confuse them with feints. Each correct guess wins a pair of bones, each miss loses a counter. When the guesser has won both pairs, his team takes over and the other side guesses. When all counters are on one side the game is over. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)