🎯 A throwing game 🪨 A stone disc

chunkey

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A Native American game where players roll a stone and throw spears to land near it

noun
/ˈtʃʌŋki/

: juego de chunkey

As if to accentuate the idea that chunkey was a microcosm of the greater cosmos, crosses were occasionally engraved on chunkey disks representing the four directions or quarters of the universe.
play chunkey
chunkey game

Examples

In historic times, chunkey was also a gambling game par excellence.

Academic text (2009)
Thus, chunkey was also linked to certain creation-and-rebirth stories.

Academic text (2009)
Chunkey meant a lot to its participants, who would have learned the game as children.

Academic text (2009)
The artist who carved this piece realistically depicted a man on his knees in the act of playing chunkey.

Academic text (2009)
The stories these Native Americans told of its history imply chunkey was significant to their Cahokian forbears.

Academic text (2009)
Emerson's work demonstrates that this representation of a chunkey player was probably carved in the city, another indication that chunkey was strongly identified with Cahokia.

Academic text (2009)
All this suggests to archaeologists a clear connection between the spread of chunkey, as documented by the distribution of stone rollers in the historical era, and the rise of Cahokia.

Academic text (2009)
The pan-continental archaeological, historical, and linguistic patterns of chunkey's distribution suggest that the game arose near Cahokia a few centuries before 1050.

Academic text (2009)
Self-trained archaeologist Gregory Perino was among the first to understand the significance of chunkey's chronology and the different styles of chunkey stones found throughout the Midwest.

Academic text (2009)
Children gather to play chunkey during the festival, rolling stones and aiming their spears at the target.

Surface Forms

chunkey singular

chunkeys plural

Etymology

Chunkey also means the old Native American game where people roll a stone disc and throw spears to try to hit it. The name comes from what Native players called the game, probably from a Native language, so the English word now means both the 'game' and the 'stone' used in it.