Chunkey Yard

This diagram of a chunkey yard by Edwin H. Davis is based on a drawing by naturalist William Bartram from his unpublished manuscript “Observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians.” Chunkey was the most popular game among southeastern Native Americans until the advent of the colonial era. Players rolled a stone disc and threw poles or spears after it, trying to land closest to where the stone had stopped.

Courtesy of the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution