A Iroquois Nationals player, left, tangles with one from the Canadian lacrosse team. Photo from World Indoor Lacrosse Championship / Facebook
Lacrosse, North America’s original stick ball game
By Ivan F. Star Comes Out
www.nsweekly.com As a culturally distinct group of native people here on the Pine Ridge, we are very close to permanently losing our identity. A majority relies on a federal enrollment number on a “tribal” ID card, proudly adhere to “Sioux,” and speak English only. Some resort to eagle feathers, chokers, ribbon shirts and an “Indian” name to attain that sense of identity. I think often about this situation and I believe what I am seeing today is the result of the national effort to assimilate “Indians” into the dominant culture. I believe we have been torn apart to a point where we no longer remember our history, our customs or traditions, which include Indigenous sports. Many aspire to the new American way of life, which includes basketball, football, and baseball. Our culture, in the least, is more than a thousand years old. We descend from a very ancient people who tirelessly transmitted their culture down through the ages. Within that spectrum is a game, called by many names, that was played by natives prior to the creation of the new nation. By contrast, these popular modern sports were created a mere 175 years ago. Although subject to controversy and debate, one can vie without harm that Baseball, America’s favorite pastime, was invented as early as 1839 by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, N.Y. Earlier bat and ball running games like cricket and rounders were invented in England. Basketball began in 1891 in Springfield, MA by Canadian physical education instructor James Naismith as a less injury-prone sport than football. The game became established with colleges and then the professional game followed in 1949. Football began in 1863 in England when rugby football association branched off and the Football Association in England was formed. The American version began in 1869 when Rutgers and Princeton played what is known as the first college football game. I acknowledge there are benefits to these sports such as scholarships. However, I see a problem that is rooted in the fact that we as natives are in the next to last stage of our cultural institutions. The federal forced assimilation dogma has nearly succeeded in eliminating native sports from our collective memory. The game now known as “lacrosse” is a stick ball game that was in existence when the Europeans arrived here. It is almost exclusively a male team sport and distinguished from others by the use of a netted racquet with which players pick the ball up off the ground, pass and catch, and carry it into or past a goal.
Read the rest of the story on the all new Native Sun News website: Lacrosse, North America’s original stick ball game (Ivan F. Star Comes Out, POB 147, Oglala, SD 57764, (605) 867-2448, mato_nasula2@outlook.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
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