This is not a red herring ;-)

Ceci n’est pas un faux-fuyant 🙂

Alta polis man iskom iht dais [SIC!!!], ukuk
Then the policeman picked up a dice, (one of) those

chikmin dais kluchmin lolo kopa iaka lima pus
metal dice that a woman wears on her finger when

iaka mamuk kipwit iktas.
is sewing things.

(from Kamloops Wawa #129 [June 1895], page 87)

That illustration doesn’t evoke dice in my brain. This is a charming  and minor mistake.

What happened?  The native French-speaking editor of the Chinuk Wawa newspaper, translating a published French story, casts about for a Chinook word for “thimble”.  He chooses the wrong English translation of French dé — understandably because the latter means both “die, dice” and “thimble”.

Funny!