For years, missionaries and the following tidal wave of white settlers attempted to prevent Native Tribes of the Northwest from playing their "hand game." The game, also called "stick game" or "bone game," is a game of chance played for generations by many Tribes.

In his film Hand Game: The Native North American Game of Power and Chance, filmmaker Lawrence Johnson documents the game on a number of Indian Reservations across the Northwest--both as it is played currently and as the mythic and historic roots of contemporary gambling in Indian Country. By foregoing traditional narration and allowing the colorful, engaging players of the game to share their stories instead, viewers experience how hand game is woven into the larger cultural tapestry. It is a tapestry that binds not only a Tribe's people together, but Tribes to one another to create a greater sense of Indian identity.

In an alternate world, where Native traditions were shared more easily in the dominant culture, one could easily imagine hand game being broadcast on ESPN, similar to the World Series of Poker Tour. Players wearing blank expressions and sunglasses indoors would be replaced with the great energy of Native music, song and dance; the bright and busy backdrops of casinos would be replaced with the beauty and life of a different Indian Reservation for each match.

However, that remains a fantasy--for now. But that only makes hand game all the more relevant. For generations, hand game served to bring people together in peace while reminding them of the lesson implicit in the game--while you are sometimes granted temporary mastery over the game, like life, hand game remains mostly chance.

Hand game continues to instruct and bind, but now it provides something extra--it provides a way for Indians to shrug off the forces of assimilation, preserve their culture and ways of thinking, and re-assert their "Indianness." And this makes hand game all the richer.

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