Baggataway

Lacrosse or baggataway, commonly known as a stick ball game. A game believed to be older than human kind itself. Nobody really knows how long it was played, it was never documented but was played throught Native American Indian history, the predessesors of modern lacrosse.

Also there were other variations of stick ball games like Ta-béme and Shinny which is like field hockey.

Requirements:

- This game required the greatest skill for catching, carrying, and passing a ball using only the basketlike head of the lacrosse stick. Quickness, stamina, and strength were equally important to play the game well.

- Nets consisted of material such as elm bark, leather or dear hide.

- The game was played with a cane shaped stick shaped like a shepards staff with leather or dear hide woven as a pouch at the end of it. Native americans played this with a stone

History:

- Oneidas and other Iroquois loved the game passionately as entertainment and physical conditioning. Lacrosse was also a religious celebration. The Oneida creation story, for example, describes a spirit world which preceded our earth and Is above it.

- The name Lacrosse came about from a debate about its origin. The popular belief is that Jesuit missionaries named the game Lacrosse because of the “Stick’s” similarity to the staff or crosier held by Jesuit

Variations of Play:

Ebenezer Elmer, 1776

The game is won by one's knocking the ball such a number of times beyond the lines fixed upon on the side of his antagonists. At this play were 15 or 20 of each side. The lines fixed were forty or fifty rods apart, and in knocking the ball they showed the greatest dexterity and no less activity and ability of body in continuing to run with great fury over the field for at least two hours.

Joseph Bloomfield, 1776

Two grand matches were made up between the Oneidas and Tuscaroras...Near 100 Dollars worth of their ornaments were staked each time, which were gained by the Tuscaroras. The Oneidas had been used to beat them at all these matches till this day. At these matches the ornaments staked are generally collected from the women who generously give some of their wampum, silver, bead bracelets, earrings, jewels and pins. Others give necklaces, belts ,etc. and all kinds of Indian ornaments. They are remarkable fair in their play. Nothing that has the appearance of cheating nor any wrongdoing are seen on those occasions.

Paolo Andreani, 1790

During the months of harvest this nation [Oneida] does not go hunting except in the event of some extraordinary need; usually during this time the men amuse themselves almost every day with a game which consists of tossing a ball about. Each player is furnished with a kind of racket about four feet six inches long which at the small end curves somewhat and like the string of a bow serves to throw the ball. He who succeeds in catching it with this instrument in turn tosses it in this fashion while preventing others from touching it until it has made a determinate number of circuits of a great field...This game requires agility accompanied by skill.

Alfred Cope, 1849

The players arranged themselves in two lines facing each other with an interval of about four feet. Each lad was furnished with a bat or stick the length of an ordinary cane...The two leaders of the contending parties, at the commencement, extending their bats towards each other with the flat surface in a vertical position and in contact, kept the ball quietly suspended for a few moments between them. At a given signal, a violent struggle ensued, each exerting all his might to overcome the pressure of his opponent's bat and throw the ball towards the goal which lay on his left hand. Muscular strength or superior adroitness soon prevailed on one side, and the ball was quickly seen flying through the air with the swiftness of an arrow.

Reference Links

http://www.simplylacrosse.com/who-invented-lacrosse.html

http://www.oneidaindiannation.com/culture/lacrosse/26867219.html