[From chungke a game played by the Cherokees and other North American Indians, consisting in trundling a stone disc, and throwing a pole or dart to fall near it. See Bartram in Trans. Amer. Ethnol. Soc., III. I. 34 (1853), Adair, Hist. Amer. Ind. (1775), 401.]
Chunk- or Chunky-yard, a name given by the traders to a square area surrounded by a bank in Creek towns, used for ceremonials and games (including that of chungke). Chunk or chunky pole; a pine-tree pillar on a low mound in the center of the chunk-yard, on the top of which was placed an object to shoot at.
1771. W. Bartram, Trav. Florida (1793), 517–8 (Bartl.). Vast tetragon terraces, chunk yards, and obelisks or pillars of wood.
1860. Thoreau, Lett. (1865), 189. That memorable stone ‘chunk yard.’
1865. Lubbock, Preh. Times (1869), 259. The ‘chunk-yards’ … are sometimes from 6 to 9 hundred feet in length, being largest in the older towns…. In the centre is a low mound, on which stands the chunk-pole.
