ajagaak

Make and play this traditional Inuit game!

Materials:

	Empty film canister (or bone with one or more holes)
	Wooden chopstick or skewer (3-6" long is best)
	String
	Hole punch
	Scissors

How To:

	Remove the lid from the film canister and use the hole punch to make a number of holes in the sides.
	Cut a piece of string 6-8" long. Tie one end to the chopstick and the other through a hole near the edge of the film canister.

To Play:

The object of the game is to hold the stick in one hand and swing the canister into the air trying to spear a hole with the stick.

Sometimes this game is played to a story:

	With two or more players each having their own ajagaak, the players continue to flip the bone until it is speared 5 times.
	This represents the first five days of the hunt.
	On the 6th spear, a caribou is killed.
	Continue until 10 caribou are killed.
	When the hunter gets 10 caribou, he must now bury (cache) them. This means that he spears the bone 10 more times, with each time representing a cache.
	Once all the caribou are buried, they have to be dug up again (10 more times).
	When all the caribou are dug up, the first player to get his all dug up can then begin to steal the other hunters' caribou who haven't got theirs yet.

The player with the most caribou is the winner.

Variation:

All players sit in a circle and the ajagaak is passed from person to person each trying to spear the bone. When a player fails to spear the bone, it is passed on to the next person. If the player is successful, she continues to do it until she misses. Whoever flips the bone successfully to the count of all fingers and toes wins.

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ajagaak

Materials:

How To:

To Play:

Variation:

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