Wiktionary
n. A game in which players attempt to remove sticks from a scattered pile without disturbing any stick other than the one currently being removed.
Wikipedia
Pick-up sticks or pick-a-stick is a game of physical and mental skill. A bundle of 'sticks', between 8 and 20 centimeters long, are held in a loose bunch and released on a table top, falling in random disarray. Each player, in turn, must remove a stick from the pile without disturbing the remaining ones. One root of the name "pick-up sticks" may be the line of a children's nursery rhyme, "...five, six, pick-up sticks!" The game has spawned several variations such as Jackstraws (or Jack Straws), Spellicans, and Spillikins.
The sticks can be made out of ivory, bone, wood, bamboo, straw, reed, rush, yarrow, or plastics.
Some Haida First Nation pick-up sticks are plain maple wood; they may also be decorated with abalone shell and copper.
The today most common pick-up game is Mikado. For details, see there.
Haida pick-up sticks exist in two sorts. There were non-decorated thin playing sticks (not collected) and the other decorated containing three sets of sticks. These were named after animals or birds only known by the owner or his family according to Charles F. Newcombe.
The decoration consists of rings and spiral markings for distinction. Most elaborated sets may contain a Haida art gallery of more than fifty drawings. Made of maple wood they are decorated with pyro-engravings or carvings. Many pyro-engravings are inlaid with copper or abalone shell. The drawings are complex and an artistic challenge as they are wrapped around a cylinder. Their form is unlocked through slow rotation and are sometimes animated cartoon-like with themes of moving shamans, birds, whales, war scenes, hunting, fishing etc. The compositions are small and not more than 2 cm in length. The sticks were a field where the Haida became truly documentary. Franz Boas, Swanton and others published drawings of many art sets. George T. Emmons recorded many details about a full set owned by a Tlingit Indian.
It's possibly related to the pick-up sticks game played today, most notably the Jackstraws variation.
Category:Haida Category:Games of physical skill
Pick-Up Sticks is a children's novel by Canadian author Sarah Ellis. The novel received the 1991 Governor General's Award for Children's Literature. The story is told from the perspective of a thirteen-year-old girl, Polly, as she experiences the struggles of losing her home and her comfortable life. Ellis stated that it was inspired by an interview with a homeless woman who was no longer able to care for her family.
Pick-up sticks is a game of physical and mental skill.
Pick-up sticks or its variations may also refer to:
- Pick-Up Sticks (novel), children's novel by Sarah Ellis
- Pick-up sticks (Haida), playing sticks made by the Haida people
- "Pick Up Sticks", song by The Dave Brubeck Quartet from their album '' Time Out
Usage examples of "pick-up sticks".
Not a breeze stirred in the fie ds, where I the dry stalks of harvested corn and sunflowers lay like scattered pick-up sticks.
In Glacier, the forest floor was thick with dead and down trees, never burned, never logged, fallen in places as thick as pick-up sticks in the child's game.
She hauled one up, thankful that she'd been good at pick-up sticks as a kid, and got it free-but it wasnt actually aflame, just glowing red.