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Description

The Parowan Valley at the time of the maize harvest drew people from all over the West. Families and tribes from disparate villages gathered together to celebrate the harvest, making their annual pilgrimage to the valley. The festivities were an opportunity to meet friends, make marriage matches, exchange goods, offer thanks to the gods, and perhaps above all, to have a good time.

A thousand years ago, the Parowan Valley and surrounding area were home to a group of people known to archaeologists as the Fremont. Bound together by a distinctive style of basketry, the Fremont were a diverse group who have puzzled the many scholars who try to study them. They were a farming people who also maintained some nomadic practices to adapt to unpredictable climates. Their petroglyphs across the northern Southwest show evocative images of horned figures, herders, agricultural fields, moccasins, and warriors. While they show some similarities to the people of the great Pueblo sites like Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde and appear genetically related to some Pueblo people today, they also have linguistic links to the Plains Kiowa people, and they were largely displaced by incoming Numic-speakers like the Ute and Paiute centuries before European contact. Their mixed lineage coming down to the present can make them a difficult people to understand, since archaeologists can't easily employ ethnographic parallels to interpret the objects they find.

In spite of these challenges, the artefacts the Fremont left behind give us some idea of the lives they lived. They developed a more sedentary lifestyle when they started growing maize. As happened across much of North and South America, the adoption of maize came with changes to their social structure. In many Fremont societies, social stratification seems to have developed, with high-status men coming together to drink corn beer. The Fremont were spread widely across what's currently Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho and Wyoming. On special occasions, however, perhaps at times associated with the agricultural year like the corn harvest, they travelled great distances to come together. The Parowan Valley was perhaps their biggest gathering place. The valley is home to a group of archaeological sites known today as Parowan, Paragonah, and Summit, all of which show evidence for large-scale meetings of people from across the region.

And what did the Fremont do when they gathered together? One thing we can tell they did is gamble. Gambling was widespread across ancient North America. Unlike modern Western conceptions of gambling, which frame it mostly as a low-status, somewhat deviant leisure activity, gambling held great significance in many Indigenous societies. In more egalitarian societies like in the Northeastern Woodlands, gambling could serve as a means to redistribute wealth so that no one individual could hoard high-status objects. In other places, like Chaco Canyon , gambling might reinforce social stratification, with elites gambling together to circulate rare imports from Mesoamerica like parrots amongst themselves. It's even been speculated that in Chaco Canyon, many of the labourers who helped construct the canyon's Great Houses were enslaved after losing their freedom through gambling. Many Native American societies have stories about legendary gamblers from the past, and these stories contain lessons about good and evil, maintaining balance, and the dangers of greed. There is often a sacred dimension to gambling in these stories too. In fact, there are some Indigenous people today who see continuity between their ancient gaming practices and the modern phenomenon of tribal casinos, although there is by no means a consensus about the relationship between the two forms of gaming.

Judging by the large quantity of gaming pieces found in Fremont sites, the Fremont were avid gamblers. Hundreds of gaming pieces have been found in the Parowan Valley, by far the most found in any Fremont area. Many of the pieces are similar to those found in a more recent historical context, documented in the 19th and 20th century by white American collectors. In particular, the Fremont gaming pieces resemble the dice pieces of historical women's dice games. Both men and women have long played dice games and gambled with them, although in many tribes it was customary for men and women to play separately. The Parowan Valley dice are shaped pieces of bone which were probably manufactured by women in the valley itself. They are often found near high-status trade objects like turquoise and shell jewellery. On one side they are painted with hematite, a reddish pigment, just as many historical examples of Native people's game pieces are painted red on one side. Among some peoples, the painted and unpainted sides represent the duality of good and evil, while others assign genders or different animal names to each side.

The rules for dice games are complex and vary widely across the continent, but the scoring usually involves tallying up the decorated versus undecorated sides. Women could play individually or in teams, and the things they wagered on the game ranged from chores to exotic jewellery. The Fremont were probably a linguistically diverse group, and gaming was a great way to bring together people from different language traditions because you didn't have to speak the same language to share the game. Through their gambling, Fremont women facilitated the exchange of long-distance trade goods and also built relationships through fun and rivalry with women from other communities. Men had their own games which the Fremont probably played too, like the hand game which is a guessing game still played today by many Native Americans. In fact, in some places it was even recorded in historical times that men might wager their own wives, creating opportunities for intermarriages between groups. Men and women sometimes played against each other too, often with chores being wagered such as cooking or carrying heavy objects.

The young women in this illustration are playing a dice game. They've escaped from the hot sun in the coolness of a pithouse, the mostly subterranean houses where Fremont people typically lived. They're decked out in their finest jewellery, showing off what they have to wager and also probably dressed for religious ceremonies they will dance in later. A flat tray basket catches the dice as they fall. One woman watches eagerly, hoping for her opponent to roll badly, although the woman throwing the dice appears fairly confident in her luck. Gaming was sometimes accompanied by singing and dancing, so the two women in the foreground might be singing a special gambling song. In fact, a Kiowa woman in the 19th century was recorded as having this song, which came to her in a dream:

Hise' hi, hise' hi,
Hä' tine' bäku' tha' na,
Hä' tine' bäku' tha' na,
Häti' ta-u' seta' na,
Häti' ta-u' seta' na.

My comrade, my comrade,
Let us play the awl game,
Let us play the awl game,
Let us play the dice game,
Let us play the dice game.

The Kiowa woman who sang this said that the song was given to her in a dream. She found herself in the spirit world and met a group of her former girl companions and sat down with them to play their favourite dice games. Given the fight against genocide that the Kiowa were undergoing at the time, the song is a powerful statement of survival in the face of the gravest threats. In fact, this song was sometimes sung to accompany the Ghost Dance, a religious resistance movement that swept through Native societies at the end of the 19th century. The United States government tried to put an end to the movement with the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, but the Ghost Dance, and the nations who danced it, have persevered.

The persistence of Native gaming traditions demonstrates the resilience of Native communities in the face of genocide, and their success at maintaining links to their ancestors across generations of persecution. At the heart of gaming is the idea of people coming together to have fun. Just as the Fremont women laughed and sang while playing dice games together a thousand years ago, so too do Indigenous people continue to live joyful and meaningful lives in defiance of attempts to silence and stifle them.

I started this in January so it was good to come back to it. The poses in this were really hard! I used this pose and this pose from SenshiStock as references. The women's outfits are based on the Pilling Figurines which are the only images I could find of Fremont women. It was the figurines that first got me interested in the Fremont a few years ago since they are so beautiful. Thank you to Sacha for help with drawing this one. For some reason on dA I'm not getting the option to insert community-made emoticons, so the flags are a little messed up for this one.

Learn more on the website: womenof1000ad.weebly.com/gambl…

Others in the series include...

Thorgunna

The Deaconess of Lucca
Karima al-Marwaziyya
Sembiyan Mahādevi and Kundavai Pirāttiyār
The Parishioner of North Elmham
Zoë and Theodora Porphyrogenita
The Inuk and the Tunik
The Cloudgazer of Kuélap
Lady Yeli, Lady Wang, and the Yicheng Princess

Fatima and Aisha

Description

The Parowan Valley at the time of the maize harvest drew people from all over the West. Families and tribes from disparate villages gathered together to celebrate the harvest, making their annual pilgrimage to the valley. The festivities were an opportunity to meet friends, make marriage matches, exchange goods, offer thanks to the gods, and perhaps above all, to have a good time.

A thousand years ago, the Parowan Valley and surrounding area were home to a group of people known to archaeologists as the Fremont. Bound together by a distinctive style of basketry, the Fremont were a diverse group who have puzzled the many scholars who try to study them. They were a farming people who also maintained some nomadic practices to adapt to unpredictable climates. Their petroglyphs across the northern Southwest show evocative images of horned figures, herders, agricultural fields, moccasins, and warriors. While they show some similarities to the people of the great Pueblo sites like Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde and appear genetically related to some Pueblo people today, they also have linguistic links to the Plains Kiowa people, and they were largely displaced by incoming Numic-speakers like the Ute and Paiute centuries before European contact. Their mixed lineage coming down to the present can make them a difficult people to understand, since archaeologists can't easily employ ethnographic parallels to interpret the objects they find.

In spite of these challenges, the artefacts the Fremont left behind give us some idea of the lives they lived. They developed a more sedentary lifestyle when they started growing maize. As happened across much of North and South America, the adoption of maize came with changes to their social structure. In many Fremont societies, social stratification seems to have developed, with high-status men coming together to drink corn beer. The Fremont were spread widely across what's currently Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho and Wyoming. On special occasions, however, perhaps at times associated with the agricultural year like the corn harvest, they travelled great distances to come together. The Parowan Valley was perhaps their biggest gathering place. The valley is home to a group of archaeological sites known today as Parowan, Paragonah, and Summit, all of which show evidence for large-scale meetings of people from across the region.

And what did the Fremont do when they gathered together? One thing we can tell they did is gamble. Gambling was widespread across ancient North America. Unlike modern Western conceptions of gambling, which frame it mostly as a low-status, somewhat deviant leisure activity, gambling held great significance in many Indigenous societies. In more egalitarian societies like in the Northeastern Woodlands, gambling could serve as a means to redistribute wealth so that no one individual could hoard high-status objects. In other places, like Chaco Canyon , gambling might reinforce social stratification, with elites gambling together to circulate rare imports from Mesoamerica like parrots amongst themselves. It's even been speculated that in Chaco Canyon, many of the labourers who helped construct the canyon's Great Houses were enslaved after losing their freedom through gambling. Many Native American societies have stories about legendary gamblers from the past, and these stories contain lessons about good and evil, maintaining balance, and the dangers of greed. There is often a sacred dimension to gambling in these stories too. In fact, there are some Indigenous people today who see continuity between their ancient gaming practices and the modern phenomenon of tribal casinos, although there is by no means a consensus about the relationship between the two forms of gaming.

Judging by the large quantity of gaming pieces found in Fremont sites, the Fremont were avid gamblers. Hundreds of gaming pieces have been found in the Parowan Valley, by far the most found in any Fremont area. Many of the pieces are similar to those found in a more recent historical context, documented in the 19th and 20th century by white American collectors. In particular, the Fremont gaming pieces resemble the dice pieces of historical women's dice games. Both men and women have long played dice games and gambled with them, although in many tribes it was customary for men and women to play separately. The Parowan Valley dice are shaped pieces of bone which were probably manufactured by women in the valley itself. They are often found near high-status trade objects like turquoise and shell jewellery. On one side they are painted with hematite, a reddish pigment, just as many historical examples of Native people's game pieces are painted red on one side. Among some peoples, the painted and unpainted sides represent the duality of good and evil, while others assign genders or different animal names to each side.

The rules for dice games are complex and vary widely across the continent, but the scoring usually involves tallying up the decorated versus undecorated sides. Women could play individually or in teams, and the things they wagered on the game ranged from chores to exotic jewellery. The Fremont were probably a linguistically diverse group, and gaming was a great way to bring together people from different language traditions because you didn't have to speak the same language to share the game. Through their gambling, Fremont women facilitated the exchange of long-distance trade goods and also built relationships through fun and rivalry with women from other communities. Men had their own games which the Fremont probably played too, like the hand game which is a guessing game still played today by many Native Americans. In fact, in some places it was even recorded in historical times that men might wager their own wives, creating opportunities for intermarriages between groups. Men and women sometimes played against each other too, often with chores being wagered such as cooking or carrying heavy objects.

The young women in this illustration are playing a dice game. They've escaped from the hot sun in the coolness of a pithouse, the mostly subterranean houses where Fremont people typically lived. They're decked out in their finest jewellery, showing off what they have to wager and also probably dressed for religious ceremonies they will dance in later. A flat tray basket catches the dice as they fall. One woman watches eagerly, hoping for her opponent to roll badly, although the woman throwing the dice appears fairly confident in her luck. Gaming was sometimes accompanied by singing and dancing, so the two women in the foreground might be singing a special gambling song. In fact, a Kiowa woman in the 19th century was recorded as having this song, which came to her in a dream:

Hise' hi, hise' hi,
Hä' tine' bäku' tha' na,
Hä' tine' bäku' tha' na,
Häti' ta-u' seta' na,
Häti' ta-u' seta' na.

My comrade, my comrade,
Let us play the awl game,
Let us play the awl game,
Let us play the dice game,
Let us play the dice game.

The Kiowa woman who sang this said that the song was given to her in a dream. She found herself in the spirit world and met a group of her former girl companions and sat down with them to play their favourite dice games. Given the fight against genocide that the Kiowa were undergoing at the time, the song is a powerful statement of survival in the face of the gravest threats. In fact, this song was sometimes sung to accompany the Ghost Dance, a religious resistance movement that swept through Native societies at the end of the 19th century. The United States government tried to put an end to the movement with the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, but the Ghost Dance, and the nations who danced it, have persevered.

The persistence of Native gaming traditions demonstrates the resilience of Native communities in the face of genocide, and their success at maintaining links to their ancestors across generations of persecution. At the heart of gaming is the idea of people coming together to have fun. Just as the Fremont women laughed and sang while playing dice games together a thousand years ago, so too do Indigenous people continue to live joyful and meaningful lives in defiance of attempts to silence and stifle them.

I started this in January so it was good to come back to it. The poses in this were really hard! I used this pose and this pose from SenshiStock as references. The women's outfits are based on the Pilling Figurines which are the only images I could find of Fremont women. It was the figurines that first got me interested in the Fremont a few years ago since they are so beautiful. Thank you to Sacha for help with drawing this one. For some reason on dA I'm not getting the option to insert community-made emoticons, so the flags are a little messed up for this one.

Learn more on the website: womenof1000ad.weebly.com/gambl…

Others in the series include...

Thorgunna

The Deaconess of Lucca
Karima al-Marwaziyya
Sembiyan Mahādevi and Kundavai Pirāttiyār
The Parishioner of North Elmham
Zoë and Theodora Porphyrogenita
The Inuk and the Tunik
The Cloudgazer of Kuélap
Lady Yeli, Lady Wang, and the Yicheng Princess

Fatima and Aisha