Day 3 of Competitions

Above: Stick Gambling. The girls in red kneeling on the floor and the drummers are part of this game. The rules are sort of like this: One team hides tokens in their hand and the other team tries to guess which hand the tokens are in. In the mean time the drummers drum and singers sing to try to confuse the opponents. A right guess and the player is eliminated. A wrong guess and a stick is given to the team. The team with the most sticks wins.

If I can figure it out, tomorrow I will put on a wee video of the stick gambling.

I worked in the Volunteer Lounge today at the brand new Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre on the banks of the Yukon River. This centre will not be officially opened until June 25th, but the doors opened for the first time to accommodate the Dene (pronounced Den-Nay) Games and Native Craft Fair. When I arrived in the early afternoon, Stick Gambling, also known as Hand Games, was in full bloom. I was also told that Dun means People. Kwanlin means river running through a canyon. So generally speaking Kwanlin Dun means River People, one of the reasons they build their cultural centre on the river.