Attempts to understand the Indianness of Indians - among the most intelligent people in the world. The author uses the props of game theory and behavioural economics to provide an insight into the difficult conundrum of why we are the way we are.

‘Raghunathan writes really well . . . there are rare instances where a reviewer thinks; I wish I could write like that. This is one of those rare instances’ —Bibek Debroy in Indian Express In a rare attempt to understand the Indianness of Indians—among the most intelligent people in the world; but also; to a dispassionate eye; perhaps the most baffling—V. Raghunathan uses the props of game theory and behavioural economics to provide an insight into the difficult conundrum of why we are the way we are. He puts under the scanner our attitudes towards rationality and irrationality; selflessness and selfishness; competition and cooperation; and collaboration and deception. Drawing examples from the way we behave in day-to-day situations; Games Indians Play tries to show how in the long run each one of us—whether businessmen; politicians; bureaucrats; or just plain us—stand to profit more if we were to assume a little self-regulation; give fairness a chance and strive to cooperate and collaborate a little more even if self-interest were to be our main driving force.

Rich collection of 150 authentic American Indian games for boys and girls of all ages: running, relay, kicking, throwing and rolling, tossing and catching, guessing, group-challenge and many other games. 74 black-and-white illustrations.

Games figured prominently in the myths of North American Indian tribes, and also in their ceremonies for bringing rain and fertility and combating misfortune. In his classic study, originally published in 1907 as a report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Stewart Culin divided the games played by Indian men and women into two general types. Volume 1 of this Bison Books edition takes up games of chance, involving guessing and throwing dice. Culin was able to show that the games of North American tribes were remarkably similar in method and purpose. He found that games using dice of various materials—wood, cane, bone, animal teeth, fruit stones—existed among 130 tribes belonging to 30 linguistic groups. The games are described in detail in this volume, and so are the popular guessing games drawing on sticks and wooden disks and involving hidden objects. Volume 2 is just as absorbing in its elaboration of skills like archery and games like snow-snake, in which darts or javelins were hurled over snow or ice. Played throughout the continent north of Mexico were the hoop and pole game and its miniature, solitaire form called ring and pin, here illustrated. With equal authority Culin discusses ball games: racket, shinny, football, and hot ball. He includes accounts of "minor amusements": shuttlecock, tipcat, quoits, popgun, bean shooter, and cat's cradle. Originally published in 1907, Stewart Culin's comprehensive work reveals a side of American Indian culture still only rarely shown. An experienced observer, Culin was curator of ethnology at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and the author of books about games in other cultures.

Discusses the wide variety of games engaged in by North and Central American Indians, including, lacrosse, cat's-cradle, dice games, and horse racing.

One day Alice C. Fletcher realized that "unlike my Indian friends, I was an alien, a stranger in my native land." But while living with the Indians and pursuing her ethnological studies she felt that "the plants, the trees, the clouds and all things had become vocal with human hopes, fears, and supplications." This famous statement comes directly from the preface of this book and was later etched on her tombstone. "I have arranged these dances and games with native songs in order that our young people may recognize, enjoy and share in the spirit of the olden life upon this continent, " she wrote. Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs is a collection that conveys the pleasure and meaning of music and play and rhythmic movement for American Indians. Many of the activities here described are adapted from ceremonials and sports. Included is a "drama in five dances" celebrating the life of corn. "Calling the Flowers" is an appeal to spirits dwelling underground to join the dancers. Still another dramatic dance, with accompanying songs, petitions clouds to leave the sky. The Festival of Joy, an ancient Omaha ceremony, is centered on a sacred tree. In the second part Indian ball games and games of hazard and guessing are set forth, as well as the popular hoop and javelin game. Fletcher closes with a section on Indian names. Alice C. Fletcher, the foremost woman anthropologist in the United States in the nineteenth century, is also the author, with Francis La Flesche, of A Study of Omaha Indian Music and the two-volume Omaha Tribe. Both titles are available as Bison Books. Helen Myers is the coauthor of Folk Music in the United States: An Introduction.

Briefly describes some of the toys and games used by various North American Indian cultures to amuse their children and teach lessons about life.