Dene Hand Games in Caribou Carnival 2009, Yellowknife, NT
This is a very intense game that takes place between different tribes in the NWT. After watching it for about 20 minutes, I could kind of guess the aim of the game and the drums.
The game involves some type of stone/coin and of course the drum beats. First one of the teams hides stones/coins on their hands and chants their tribal words with vigorous hand movement. The drum and the hand movement are more or less to confuse the other team members who are trying to guess where the stone/coin actually is. One by one a member from each team is chosen and gestures are shown to indicate which hand might have the stone/coin.
If the guess is correct, the guessing team gets a point in the form of a stick. If they guess it wrong, they lose a stick. The game goes on for a long time as teams swap sticks/points.
