Iroquoian Chunkey

Summary

Iroquoians played the hoop and pole game in Historic times, but there are no descriptions of Iroquoians playing chunkey, a variant of hoop and pole that makes use of a rolled stone disk. This has led to a widespread belief that chunkey was not played by Iroquoians. However, a symmetrical stone disk was recovered from the Eaton site, a mid-sixteenth century Erie village. Other researchers report stone disks from the following groups: Neutral (Bill Fox), Erie (Joshua Kwoka), Seneca (Martha Sempowski), Cayuga (Kathleen Allen), Mohawk (Wayne Lenig), and Susquehannock (Jim Herbstritt). While none of these disks resemble the highly polished discoidals associated with Cahokia and related Mississippian centers, stone disks from Iroquoian villages could have been used in the game of chunkey. The context in which chunkey may have been played and its related symbolism is discussed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20165