Civilised Tarahumares, as well as the Mexicans, play with knuckle-bones as dice.  The game is called la taba, and the bones are taken from either the deer, the sheep, or the goat.  Only one bone is used by the two players.  Twelve points make a game, and each player has twelve grains of corn with which he keeps count.  He makes two rings in the sand, and puts his twelve grains in one ring, and as the game progresses he transfers them into the second ring until the game is out.

Their greatest gambling game, at which they may play even when tipsy, is quinze; in Tarahumare, romavoa.  It is played with four sticks of equal length, called romalaka and inscribed with certain marks to indicate their value.  Practically they serve the same purpose as dice, but they are thrown in a different way.  The player grasps them in his left hand, levels their ends carefully, lifts his bundle, and strikes the ends against a flat or square little stone in front of him, from which they rebound toward his opponent.  The sticks count in accordance with the way they fall.  The point of the game is to pass through a figure outlined by small holes in the ground between the two players.  The movements, of course, depend upon the points gained in throwing the sticks, and the count is kept by means of a little stone, which is placed in the respective hole after each throw.  Many accidents may impede its progress; for instance, it may happen to be in the hole into which the adversary comes from the opposite direction.  In this case he is “killed,” and he has to begin again from the starting-point.  The advance is regulated by a number of ingenious by-laws, which make the game highly intellectual and entertaining.  If he has the wherewithal to pay his losses, a Tarahumare may go on playing for a fortnight or a month, until he has lost everything he has in this world, except his wife and children; he draws the line at that.  He scrupulously pays all his gambling debts.

The northern Tepehuanes also know this game, and play with sticks eighteen to twenty inches long.  As these larger sticks fly quite a distance off when rebounding, the players sit rather far apart.

Wrestling also may be observed, but what may be termed the national sport, of which the Tarahumares are inordinately fond, is foot-racing, which goes on all the year round, even when the people are weakened from scarcity of food.  The interest centres almost entirely in the betting that goes with it; in fact, it is only another way of gambling.  It is called rala hipa ("with the foot throw"), the word alluding to a ball used at the race.

No doubt the Tarahumares are the greatest runners in the world, not in regard to speed, but endurance.  A Tarahumare will easily run 170 miles without stopping.  When an Indian is sent out as a messenger, he goes along at a slow trot, running steadily and constantly.  A man has been known to carry a letter in five days from Guazapares to Chihuahua and back, a distance of nearly 600 miles by the road.  Even considering shortcuts, which he, no doubt, knew, it was quite a feat of endurance; for he must have lived, as the Indians always do while travelling, on pinole and water only.