Depending upon a player's country of origin and the manufacturer, this table game may have a different name. For example, the game in the photograph at the left was manufactured by Milton Bradley Company, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, Serial-Number 4093. It was purchased by the Museum from an antique shop in Ontario, Canada. The drawing on the box cover of a scarecrow stuffed with straw suggests the name of the game in the box.
The game pieces in the box bottom on the right side are made of painted wood, each about 8.8cm long. While each "straw" is essentially the same length, the red "straws" are round, the yellow "straws" are squares, the purple ones are in the shape of guns, the green ones are in the shape of serpents, orange ones shaped like lances, beige or blue ones are arrows. Each type of stick carries a point value, and the object is to pick out all of the sticks - one at a time - without disturbing the rest of the pile. To start, the pile is picked up, held in the hands, and dropped on a table. The "hook" (on the blue circle between the box sides) can act as a "helper" to move one of the sticks out of the pile without moving any other stick - but one may use their fingers to do the same thing. If a player moves more than one stick while attempting to take a single stick, the play passes to another player who starts over by taking up all of the sticks and dropping them on the table again. The winner is the one with the most scoring points. Other variations of play appear further down on this page.
People in the United States refer to this game as Pick-up-Sticks! This name seems to have a number of roots. One root is the children's nursery rhyme with the lines "...five, six, pick-up sticks!" The photograph on the right illustrates a copy donated to the Museum collection in 1984. It was manufactured under license by Granger Freres Ltd., Montreal. Each of the 40 sticks are 19cm long x .3cm in diameter. In the instructions for the game, red sticks are referred to as "Captains", yellow sticks "Warriors", blue sticks "Prince", green "Chieftain", and the one black stick as "Emperor". The black stick can be used as a "helper" to separate one of the other sticks from the pile.
To determine the origins of this game, a search of produced this information:
The date when Pick Up Sticks was invented is unclear, but it has been traced back to the Native Americans, who played it with straws of wheat and passed it on to English settlers back when the United States was still known as “the 13 colonies.” As it was passed from generation to generation, it developed into a game that was played with thin wheat-straw shaped pieces of wood. There were usually 25 sticks, and they were either painted with a spectrum of six colors or made from six different shades of wood.
and this one...
Lenape (Delaware Indians)... There is Selahtikŕn, not unlike Jackstraws. Pieces of reed were decorated with various lines and dots (for scoring purposes) and these were dropped onto a surface and then picked up one at a time without disturbing any others.
Web comments such as these about Native Americans, did not include the sources from which this information was drawn. The photograph on the left is of an earlier copy of the game manufactured by Milton Bradley which is in the collection. However, this copy is titled "American Jackstraws". Are the origins of this game "Native American?"
The major reference for such information is Stewart Culin, "Games of North American Indians", Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Smithsonian Institution, 1902-1903, 846 pages. This report was printed by the United States Government in 1907, and has subsequently been published by Dover Publications Inc., New York, in 1975. In examining this reference, pages 227 through 266 presents a survey of "stick games" played by many Native American tribes. Most of the stick games are gambling guessing games, however, some stick games seem to be forerunners of Pick-Up-Sticks. For example:
Page 232: Sauk and Fox Indians, Iowa - "In playing, the entire bundle is held together in the hands and allowed to fall in a pile, which is then divided with a pointed stick, called the dividing stick. The object is to separate [individually named sticks], but the player must call out which of these numbers he attempts to divide before putting down the dividing stick. If he succeeds he scores 1 point, but if he fails the turn goes to another player."
This description of the game as played by Native Americans indeed sounds like the commercially produced games. However, were these games "invented" by Native Americans or were they learned through cross-cultural contact with Europeans?
To answer this question brings to mind that some Canadians refer to this game as Spilikins which appears to be a variation on the British name for the game - Spellicans. The drawing on the left is a scanned copy of a set of ivory Chinese Spellicans R.C. Bell includes in his book Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations (Volume II, page133, Oxford University Press). Bell includes this game with a number of other table games which he says require "manual dexterity". In that British Spellicans sets from the past are made of carved bone or ivory and imported from China, it appears that the search for the origins of this game may be found in China. Bell states:
Page 134: The game appears to have originated in China. the best sets are made of ivory, and the higher scoring pieces are carefully fretted into familiar shapes: a spear, saw, snake on a staff, a bird on a branch, a trefoil, mitre, trident, horse's head, fork, a bucket yoke, etc... The more difficult the piece is to move by virtue of its shape, the more points are scored by extracting it from the pile, and every piece is marked with its own value... Cheaper Chinese sets are made of bone or cane, and the shapes more roughly made. European Jerk-straws, gaily coloured straight sticks of wood, are even cheaper substitutes. Each colour has a different value.
Here is a slightly modified version of Bell's instructions for playing Spellicans:
One player throws down the Spellicans, and after a piece has fallen from his hand it cannot be adjusted.
Another player then takes the hook and tries to remove a piece from the pile without disturbing any other pieces. If successful he tries to remove another, and continues until a unintended piece has been disturbed. If this happens, the hook is passed to the player on his left.
After a piece has been touched, a player cannot touch any other piece until the touched piece has been disengaged completely from the pile.
When the hook is passed, the new player may continue to take the touched piece or may choose some other piece.
In an elaborate report for the US Government in the early years of the last century, Stewart Culin created a catalogue of native Hawaiian games. One of these games was a type of Spellicans or stick game. To read a page about the game as played in Hawaii click here Hawaiian Jackstraws.
To determine something of the Chinese origins of this game, again we return to Stewart Culin, but this time to his book Games of The Orient, originally published by the University of Pennsylvania in 1895, and reprinted by Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont, in 1958, 177 pages.
In a long introductory section, Culin explains how arrows were first used for divinatory purposes, then as gaming implements for purpose of gambling. Later, by modifying the length of the arrows, these became "throwing sticks" and even later became dice! During this "evolutionary" process, the original arrow feathers (and shapes) gave rise to the practice of carving and decorating the "sticks". Eventually, each type of stick took on a "value". In time the divinatory purpose disappeared, and the use of the sticks for gambling purposes remained. Culin includes information about the spread of these practices to Korea and Japan, and even to the Haida Indians of British Columbia, and certain Native American tribes in California. He does not discuss how or when these Asian games were introduced to North America, i.e.- very early, via the land bridge across the Bering Strait; or by ship across the Pacific Ocean.
It might be theorized that the ivory carved Spellicans sets pictured in Bell's book are the successors to these early Chinese games, and that Jackstraws and Pick-up-Sticks are as well. The question remains as to who introduced the game to whom and when?
There are other references to the "casting of lots" in the Bible, in the sacred text from Chaldea and Babylonia, and the Parses of India. These references muddy the situation even more. A great deal of research needs to be undertaken before questions of the origin of this game can be answered! Of course, one can always fall back on such answers as "Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock".
Last update March 24, 2010