Hand Game: The Native North American Game of Power and Chance (review)

Hand Game: The Native North American Game of Power and Chance a video by Lawrence Johnson. Lawrence Johnson Productions, Inc., 2000

Every time Coyote would get killed, his wife would come and jump over him, back and forth, and he'd become alive again. And then there was Owl . . . "It's not fair. Every time you die, you can come back. Every time one of us dies, we stay dead. It's not fair to the people." And so they talked and talked, and they couldn't come up with a fair answer. So then Coyote thought and says, "Well, let's play a game . . ."

This Coyote account of the origin of death and of the hand game is told in the words of Richard Mullan, a Coeur d'Alene. So begins the video Hand Game: The Native North American Game of Power and Chance, by Lawrence Johnson. Coyote's story most appropriately anchors and sets the tone for a very insightful, well-produced, and participant-based telling of the nature and dynamic of the hand game. On November 15, 1999, I, along with some seventy other faculty members, students, and the general public at the University of Idaho, had the privilege of experiencing a special review screening of Hand Game. Our viewing was a close-to-finished draft of the video, running some sixty-seven minutes in length, with Johnson on hand following the screening to answer questions. Johnson indicated his intent to further trim down the video to some sixty minutes or so.

Johnson has been producing and directing films since 1983, including the audiovisual images for the acclaimed "Sacred Encounters" exhibit, which received the Golden Muse Award of the American Association of Museums in recognition for the best audiovisual program in 1995. He has successfully done collaborative work with various Indian groups in Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Oregon. Johnson currently lives in Portland, Oregon.

In brief, Hand Game explores and documents the history and cultural significance of the hand game, also known as the bone or stick game, and how its traditions have survived as well as changed in reaction to the Euro-American onslaught. The hand game has been widely played throughout aboriginal North America and is still vibrant today. Its players follow the "hand game trail," competing in tournaments and games in Indian communities throughout the Western states. It is an outstanding feature of the summer powwow circuit.

Coyote's story is carefully woven throughout the video, tying the various segments of the film together, and leading to its and the video's conclusion.

"Well, . . . I have this stick right here. . . . And Owl said, "Well, how do we guess? . . . And Coyote looked around. There's the campfire, and right next to the campfire is a couple of bones. . . . Okay, whoever guesses the good bone, wins." [After Owl had won twenty-one sticks] Coyote says, "You won. Owl, you won." Owl stood up, says, "Okay. Everyone's gonna die when it's their time. That's it." And so that's how we got life and death, and that's how we got the stick game."

The commentary throughout the video is provided by Johnson's Indian consultants, most of whom are avid players themselves. It would have been easy to have relied upon a noted anthropologist or historian to provide continuous narration throughout the video, but thankfully such an approach was not pursued. Johnson's consultants, with their conversational nuances and spontaneous comments, offer the film's viewers a much closer look, an inside look, at what the hand game means for its players. In so doing, Johnson has steered a course away from advocating any particular theoretical perspective of interpretation, be it anthropological or historical, but simply, yet authentically, allowing the hand game participants themselves to tell their story in their own words. Johnson has worked closely with the various...