{"id":4195,"date":"2015-05-24T16:37:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-24T20:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/boutique\/?post_type=product&p=4195"},"modified":"2026-03-20T14:49:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T18:49:23","slug":"old-man","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/boutique\/product\/old-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Man\u2019s Playing Ground: Gaming and Trade on the Plains\/Plateau Frontier"},"content":{"rendered":"

Old Man\u2019s Playing Ground: Gaming and Trade on the Plains\/Plateau Frontier<\/strong>
\nBy Gabriel Yanicki
\nWith contributions from Allan Pard, Henry Holloway and Art Calling Last<\/p>\n

April 2014, ISBN 978-0-7766-2138-8
\nMercury Series, Archaeology Paper 173
\n271 pp., 81 illustrations, 17 x 24 cm, paperback<\/p>\n

When Hudson\u2019s Bay Company surveyor Peter Fidler made contact with the Ktunaxa at the Gap of the Oldman River in the winter of 1792, his Piik\u00e1ni guides brought him to the river\u2019s namesake. These were the playing grounds where Napi, or Old Man, taught the various nations how to play a game as a way of making peace. In the centuries since, travellers, adventurers, and scholars have recorded several accounts of Old Man\u2019s Playing Ground and of the hoop-and-arrow game that was played there.<\/p>\n

Although it has been destroyed, much can be learned from an interdisciplinary study of Old Man\u2019s Playing Ground. Oral traditions of the Piik\u00e1ni and other First Nations of the Northwest Plains and Interior Plateau, together with textual records spanning centuries, show it to be a place of enduring cultural significance irrespective of its physical remains. Knowledge of the site and the hoop-and-arrow game played there is widespread, in keeping with historic and ethnographic accounts of multiple groups meeting and gambling at the site.<\/p>\n

In this work, oral tradition, history, and ethnography are brought together with a geomorphic assessment of the playing ground\u2019s most probable location \u2014 a floodplain scoured and rebuilt by floodwaters of the Oldman \u2014 and the archaeology of adjacent prehistoric campsite DlPo-8. Taken together, the locale can be understood as a nexus for cultural interaction and trade, through the medium of gambling and games, on the natural frontier between peoples of the Interior Plateau and Northwest Plains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gabriel Yanicki
\nWith contributions from Allan Pard, Henry Holloway and Art Calling Last<\/p>\n

In this work, oral tradition, history, and ethnography are brought together with a geomorphic assessment of Old Man\u2019s Playing Ground\u2019s most probable location \u2014 a floodplain scoured and rebuilt by floodwaters of the Oldman \u2014 and the archaeology of adjacent prehistoric campsite DlPo-8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"product_cat":[301,874,302],"product_tag":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/4195"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=4195"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historymuseum.ca\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=4195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}