LACROSSE: Michigan's First Team Sport
By Larry B. Massie
(as published in Michigan History Magazine, September/October 1997; Larry Massie is a frequent contributor to Michigan History
Magazine. His most recent book is Haven, Harbor and Heritage: The Holland, Michigan, Story (1996))
Life in present-day Detroit bears little resemblance to that at the tiny French fort established by
Cadillac nearly three centuries ago. Surprisingly, some things have remained unchanged. For
example, on any given glorious Michigan midsummer day in the early eighteenth century most
women of Detroit area households might have been busily intent on the domestic drudgery that
was their lot. But for the men, young and old, the focus of their attention was sports-a ball game
in particular. Centuries before baseball, basketball and football dominated the nation's athletic
interests, the original American team sport-lacrosse-claimed a similar following among Michigan's
native peoples.
Monsieur de Sabrevois, commandant of Fort
Pontchartrain, penned a description of the
region in 1718. Referring to the Potawatomi
village located near the fort, he wrote:
In summer they play a great deal at la crosse,
twenty or more on each side. Their bat
[crosse] is a sort of small racket, and the ball
with which they Play is of very Heavy wood, a
little larger than the balls we use in Tennis.
When they Play, they are entirely naked; they
have only a breech-clout, and Shoes of deerskin. Their bodies are painted all over with all
Kinds of colors. There are some who paint their bodies with white clay, applying it to resemble
silver lace sewed on all the seams of a coat; and, at a distance, one would take for silver lace.
They Play for large Sums, and often The prize amounts to more than 800 Livres. They set up two
goals and begin their game midway between; one party drives The ball one way, and the other in
the opposite direction, and those who can drive it to the goal are the winners. All this is very
diverting and interesting to behold. Often one Village Plays against another, the poux
[Potawatomi] against the outaouacs [Ottawa] or the hurons, for very considerable prizes. The
French frequently take part in these games.
The game described by Sabrevois, called baggattaway by the Chippewa, was named lacrosse by
early French observers. It is commonly assumed that the name stems from the French term
crosse for the shepherd's crooklike crosier carried by bishops as a symbol of office. Pieffe
Francois Xavier de Charlevoix noted the resemblance between the crosier and the shape of the
racket stick in 1719. However, the term crosse, which also translates as bat, was applied to the
Indian playing stick by the Jesuit fathers nearly a century before.
Aboriginal tribes across the North American continent avidly played lacrosse as a form of
recreation and as training for the art of war. Rules of the game differed from tribe to tribe. In some
tribal contests each player carried a single three-foot-long stick; in others participants wielded a
stick in each hand. Tribal customs determined the exact size and shape of the racket. The balls
varied from wooden cores wrapped with rawhide to leather bags stuffed with deer hair. The Miami
tribesmen, in particular, drilled holes in theirs to produce a whistling sound when thrown.
Distances between goals ranged from a few hundred yards to several miles. Teams might
number a dozen or so or entire villages of several hundred braves. Matches varied from a half
hour in length to several days as combatants attempted to hurl the ball against the goal, a pole or
a natural object such as a rock or between two uprights. Lacrosse was solely a man's game, but
less violent-versions known as shinny and double-ball were played by women. Tribal shamans
usually served as game officials. Rules were
few, the play itself rough and injuries frequent.
Numerous French explorers, priests and fur
traders who first described the land that
became Michigan recorded eyewitness
accounts of the game as played by the
Potawatomi, Ottawa, Chippewa, Menominee,
Miami, Masouten, Sauk, Fox and Huron
athletes who dwelt in the peninsulas during
the first century of European contact. Probably
the first such description was penned by
Father Jean de Brebeuf in the Jesuit Relation
of 1636. At his mission to the Hurons, approximately two hundred miles northeast of Detroit, near
the south shore of Georgian Bay, he found the reputed therapeutic effects of the game little to his
liking:
There is a poor sick man, fevered of body and almost dying, and a miserable sorcerer will order
for him, as a cooling remedy, a game of crosse. Or the sick man himself, sometimes, will have
dreamed that he must die unless the whole country shall play crosse for his health; and no matter
how little may be his credit, you will see them in a beautiful field, village contending against village
as to who will play crosse the better and betting against one another beaver robes and porcelain
collars, so as to excite greater interest. Sometimes, also, one of these jugglers will say that the
whole country is sick, and he asks a game of crosse to heal it; no more needs to be said, it is
published immediately everywhere; and all the captains of each village give orders that all the
young men do their duty in this respect, otherwise some great misfortune would befall the whole
country.
While such epic matches may have preserved the health of the country according to Huron belief
the sport was often unhealthy for individual participants. Nicholas Peffot, whose memoirs
preserved his many experiences as an explorer, fur trader and government official among the
northern lake tribes from 1665-1701, described the rough play among the Huron:
At the appointed time they gather in a crowd in the center of the field, and one of the two
captains, having the ball in his hand, tosses it up in the air, each player trying to send it in the
proper direction. If the ball falls to the ground, they try to pull it toward themselves with their bats,
and should it fall outside the crowd of players the most active of them win distinction by following
closely after it. They make a great noise striking one against another when they try to parry
strokes in order to drive the ball in the proper direction. If a player keeps the ball between his feet
and is unwilling to let it go, he must guard against the blows his adversaries continually aim at his
feet; if he happens to be wounded, it is his own fault. Legs and arms are sometimes broken, and
it has happened that a player has been killed. It is quite common to see someone crippled for the
rest of his life who would not have had this misfortune but for his own obstinancy. When these
accidents happen the unlucky victim quickly withdraws from the game, if he is in a condition to do
so, but if his injury will not permit this, his relatives carry him home, and the game goes on till it is
finished, as if nothing had occurred.
Baron Louis Lahontan echoed Perrot's observations on the
dangerous aspect of lacrosse in his New Voyages to North
America (London, 1703): "This game is so violent that they
tear their skins and break their legs very often in striving to
raise the ball." Michigan Indian agent and ethnologist
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft quoted a witness who had seen a
player nearly killed during a match, "He stood in front of the
player that was going to throw the ball, who threw with
great force and aimed too low. The ball struck the other in
the side, and knocked him senseless for some time."
When such accidents occurred, little ill will was nurtured.
Indian interpreter John Long's 1791 description of the
Chippewa version of lacrosse noted "The Indians play with
great good humor, and even when one of them happens, in
the heat of the game, to strike another with his stick, it is
not resented." In at least one famous episode the dangers
of lacrosse were not restricted to participants. Alexander
Henry's oft-quoted eyewitness account of the massacre at
Fort Michilimackinac in June 1763, in which the spectators
of that lacrosse game fared most unfortunate, springs to
mind.
Far more typical of the lacrosse games enjoyed by the
northern tribes is the account of the Sault Ste. Marie area
Chippewa event penned in 1804 by Peter Grant, a fur
trader who began his career with the North West Company in 1784:
Everything being prepared, a level plain about half a mile long is chosen, with proper barriers or
goals at each end. Having previouslyforined into two equal parties, they assemble in the very
middle of the field, and the game begins by throwing up the ball perpendicularly in the air, when,
instantly, both parties form a singular group of naked men, painted in different colors and in the
most comical attitudes imaginable, gaping with their hurdles [rackets] elevated in the air to catch
the ball. Such a scene would make a scene worthy of a Hogarth or a Poussin.
Whoever is so fortunate as to catch the ball in his hurdle, runs with it towards the barrier with all
his might, supported by his party, while his opponents pursue him and endeavor to strike it out.
He who succeeds in doing so, runs in the same manner towards the opposite barrier and is of
course, pursued in his turn. If in danger of being overtaken, he may throw it with his hurdle
towards any of his associates who may happen to be nearer the barrier than himself. They have a
particular knack of throwing it to a great distance in this manner, so that the best runners have not
always the advantage, and, by a peculiar way of working their hands and arms while running, the
ball never drops out of their hurdle.
If the ball dropped to the ground, various tribes observed different rules. Among the Hurons, a
wild melee resulted as everyone attempted to whack the ball or each other's limbs. But among
the Miami, as recorded by Charlevoix during a visit to a village on the St. Joseph River, near the
present-day site of Niles in 1721, different procedures prevailed. If a player touched the ball with
his hand or dropped it to the ground "the game is lost, unless he who has committed the mistake
repairs it by driving the ball with one stroke to the bound, which is often impossible."
Indian players who accomplished great feats of play gained a celebrity status not unlike modem
day sports heros. Johann G. Kohl, a German tourist traversing Lake Superior in 1854, observed:
"Great ball players, who can send the ball so high it is out of sight, attain the same renown among
the Indians as celebrated runners, hunters or warriors." While at the Apostle Islands, Kohl asked
the local Chippewa to stage a game. "Though the chiefs were ready enough, and all were cutting
their racquets and balls in the bushes, the chief American authorities forbade this innocent
amusement." Bureaucratic spoilsports aside, by the mid-nineteenth century white men had begun
playing lacrosse.
Ironically, W. George Beers, a Montreal physician, is considered the father of lacrosse because of
his pioneering efforts to popularize the game among Canadians during the late 1850s. As
lacrosse became Canada's official national sport and clubs were organized in America, chiefly in
eastern cities and colleges, the rules of the game as played by whites became more refined, the
size of the field and number of players reduced and a square goal replaced the original poles.
Native Americans continued to enjoy their version of the game, often perfom-iing at state and
county fairs and their own social gatherings.
In 1902 ethnologist William Jones observed a game of lacrosse played between two clans of the
Fox tribe at Tama, Iowa. The match began with a declaration by an elder to the players: "We
obtained this ball game from the manitou. It was given to us long ago in the past. Our ancestors
played it as the manitou taught them in the same way we have always played it, and in the same
way we have always played it, and in the same way as all our people continue to play it." The old
man then offered some words of wisdom relevant to all who continue to enjoy the allure of athletic
endeavor: "Play hard, but play fair. Don't lose your heads and get angry."
Native American History of Lacrosse
By Thomas Vennum Jr.
Author of American Indian Lacrosse: Little Brother of War
Lacrosse was one of many varieties of indigenous stickball games being played by American
Indians at the time of European contact. Almost exclusively a male team sport, it is distinguished
from the others, such as field hockey or shinny, by the use of a netted racquet with which to pick
the ball off the ground, throw, catch and convey it into or past a goal to score a point. The cardinal
rule in all varieties of lacrosse was that the ball, with few exceptions, must not be touched with the
hands.
Early data on lacrosse, from missionaries such as French Jesuits in Huron country in the 1630s
and English explorers, such as Jonathan Carver in the mid-eighteenth century Great Lakes area,
are scant and often conflicting. They inform us mostly about team size, equipment used, the
duration of games and length of playing fields but tell us almost nothing about stickhandling,
game strategy, or the rules of play. The oldest surviving sticks date only from the first quarter of
the nineteenth century, and the first detailed reports on Indian lacrosse are even later. George
Beers provided good information on Mohawk playing techniques in his Lacrosse (1869), while
James Mooney in the American Anthropologist (1890) described in detail the "[Eastern] Cherokee
Ball-Play," including its legendary basis, elaborate rituals, and the rules and manner of play.
Given the paucity of early data, we shall probably never be able to reconstruct the history of the
sport. Attempts to connect it to the rubber-ball games of Meso-America or to a perhaps older
game using a single post surmounted by some animal effigy and played together by men and
women remain speculative. As can best be determined, the distribution of lacrosse shows it to
have been played throughout the eastern half of North America, mostly by tribes in the southeast,
around the western Great Lakes, and in the St. Lawrence Valley area. Its presence today in
Oklahoma and other states west of the Mississippi reflects tribal removals to those areas in the
nineteenth century. Although isolated reports exist of some form of lacrosse among northern
California and British Columbia tribes, their late date brings into question any widespread
diffusion of the sport on the west coast.
On the basis of the equipment, the type of goal used and the stick-handling techniques, it is
possible to discern three basic forms of lacrosse—the southeastern, Great Lakes, and Iroquoian.
Among southeastern tribes (Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Seminole, Yuchi and
others), a double-stick version of the game is still practiced. A two-and-a half foot stick is held in
each hand, and the soft, small deerskin ball is retrieved and cupped between them. Great Lakes
players (Ojibwe, Menominee, Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, Miami, Winnebago, Santee Dakota and
others) used a single three-foot stick. It terminates in a round, closed pocket about three to four
inches in diameter, scarcely larger than the ball, which was usually made of wood, charred and
scraped to shape. The northeastern stick, found among Iroquoian and New England tribes, is the
progenitor of all present-day sticks, both in box as well as field lacrosse. The longest of the
three—usually more than three feet—it was characterized by its shaft ending in a sort of crook
and a large, flat triangular surface of webbing extending as much as two-thirds the length of the
stick. Where the outermost string meets the shaft, it forms the pocket of the stick.
Lacrosse was given its name by early French settlers, using the generic term for any game
played with a curved stick (crosse) and a ball. Native terminology, however, tends to describe
more the technique (cf. Onondaga DEHUNTSHIGWA'ES, "men hit a rounded object") or,
especially in the southeast, to underscore the game's aspects of war surrogacy ("little brother of
war"). There is no evidence of non-Indians taking up the game until the mid-nineteenth century,
when English-speaking Montrealers adopted the Mohawk game they were familiar with from
Caughnawauga and Akwesasne, attempted to "civilize" the sport with a new set of rules and
organize into amateur clubs. Once the game quickly grew in popularity in Canada, it began to be
exported throughout the Commonwealth, as non-native teams travelled to Europe for exhibition
matches against Iroquois players. Ironically, because Indians had to charge money in order to
travel, they were excluded as "professionals" from international competition for more than a
century. Only with the formation of the Iroquois Nationals in the 1980s did they successfully break
this barrier and become eligible to compete in World Games.
Apart from its recreational function, lacrosse traditionally played a more serious role in Indian
culture. Its origins are rooted in legend, and the game continues to be used for curative purposes
and surrounded with ceremony. Game equipment and players are still ritually prepared by
conjurers, and team selection and victory are often considered supernaturally controlled. In the
past, lacrosse also served to vent aggression, and territorial disputes between tribes were
sometimes settled with a game, although not always amicably. A Creek versus Choctaw game
around 1790 to determine rights over a beaver pond broke out into a violent battle when the
Creeks were declared winners. Still, while the majority of the games ended peaceably, much of
the ceremonialism surrounding their preparations and the rituals required of the players were
identical to those practiced before departing on the warpath.
A number of factors led to the demise of lacrosse in many areas by the late nineteenth century.
Wagering on games had always been integral to an Indian community's involvement, but when
betting and violence saw an increase as traditional Indian culture was eroding, it sparked
opposition to lacrosse from government officials and missionaries. The games were felt to
interfere with church attendance and the wagering to have an impoverishing effect on the Indians.
When Oklahoma Choctaw began to attach lead weights to their sticks around 1900 to use them
as skull-crackers, the game was outright banned.
Meanwhile, the spread of non-native lacrosse from the Montreal area eventually led to its position
today worldwide as one of the fastest growing sports (more than half a million players), controlled
by official regulations and played with manufactured rather than hand-made equipment—the
aluminum shafted stick with its plastic head, for example. While the Great Lakes traditional game
died out by 1950, the Iroquois and southeastern tribes continue to play their own forms of
lacrosse. Ironically, the field lacrosse game of non-native women today most closely resembles
the Indian game of the past, retaining the wooden stick, lacking the protective gear and
demarcated sidelines of the men's game, and tending towards mass attack rather than field
positions and offsides.
Bibliography:
Culin, Stewart. "Games of the North American Indians." In Twenty fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology,
1902-1903, pp. 1-840. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1907.
Fogelson, Raymond. "The Cherokee Ball Game: A Study in Southeastern Ethnology." Ph.D. dissertation, University of
Pennsylvania, 1962.
Vennum, Thomas Jr. American India Lacrosse: Little Brother of War. Washington, D.C. and London: Smithsonian Institution
Press, 1994.
The History Of Lacrosse
La Crosse America's Oldest Game
A visitor from another planet would be perplexed and perhaps even frightened by the odd looking sticks with
a strange net attached, being twirled by some athletes today.
Is it a butterfly net? A crab net? A big swatter?
No, just a lacrosse stick, the primary equipment (along with a hard
rubber ball) of a lacrosse player, who plays the oldest game in the
North American continent.
Lacrosse is steeped in tradition, and though today's participants
use sticks of plastic and titanium rather than wood, the lacrosse
stick symbolizes the historical significance of the game.
The game, like the stick itself, was developed by North American
Indians as early as the 15th century. Indians played the game not
only for recreation, but also to settle tribal disputes and to toughen
warriors for fighting.
Games were played by as few as 100 and as many as 1,000 men
and lasted two or three days, with play beginning at sunup and
ending at sundown each day. Goals, consisting of rocks or trees, were generally 500 yards to a half-mile
apart, but could be several miles apart. There were no sidelines, and players raced far and wide over the
countryside.
White men - Jesuit missionaries from France - first encountered the game in the 17th century. They wrote
home about a game played by the Huron Indians with sticks reminiscent of the crosier (la Crosse) carried by
bishops as a symbol of their office.
In the early 1800's white settlers in Montreal took up the game. When the Dominion of Canada was created
a decade later, lacrosse was designated - and still remains - the national sport. Canadians introduced the
game to the United States, England, Ireland, and Scotland. Today, lacrosse is played at home and in
international competition by England and Australia, as well as the United States and Canada.
For the uninitiated, lacrosse is a combination of football, hockey and basketball. It has been called the
fastest game on two feet and is a grueling test of stamina.
There are 10 positions on a team (one goalie, three attackmen, three midfielders, and three defensemen).
The object: put a 5 oz. hard-rubber ball into your opponent's net with a long-handled stick with a triangular
pocket at the end, while keeping your opponent from doing the same to you.
Like soccer, lacrosse is played on an open field with goals at both end; like hockey, the player carry sticks
and can roam behind the net; like basketball, the offensive players set picks and run patterned offenses and
fast breaks, while the defenses are man-to-man or zone; in fact, basketball inventor James Naismith was a
lacrosse player in the late 1800's.
Glen (Pop) Warner, famed football coach, substituted lacrosse at eh Carlisle, PA, Indian School for baseball
because, "Lacrosse is a developer of health and strength. It is a game that spectators rave over once the
understand it," he said. He undoubtedly had an ulterior motive. Lacrosse, a contact sport, helped prepare his
grid warriors for the fall season.
In 1956, the game got a boost when a superior athlete
from Syracuse University, Jim Brown, scored six goals
for the North in the North-South Lacrosse game.
Brown, one of the greatest running backs in the history
of the National Football League, admitted he would
rather play lacrosse than the grid sport.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association eventually
took over the directing of intercollegiate lacrosse, and
the first NCAA Lacrosse championship was held in
1971. With the support of the NCAA, the sport has
continued to grow as more and more youngsters
reenact this modern version of the Indian tribal game.
So the next time a strange looking visitor asks you what those odd-looking sticks are, just refer him to the
nearest Jesuit missionary.
More History of Lacrosse
Lacrosse is the oldest sport in North America, with
its origin dating back to the 1400s. It did not
become generally known and talked about
however, until the 1600s when a Jesuit missionary
named Jean de Brebeuf saw the Hyron Indians
play it. In a report to his superiors, he stated little
about the actual play of the game but seemed to
be intrigued by the stick the indians used while
playing. Jean de Brebeuf likened the stick the
indians competed with, to the "crosier" carried at
religious ceremonies by a bishop. Thus, the name
la crosse evolved, and this later became simply
"lacrosse."
Indian lacrosse was a mass game and often teams were made up of one hundred to one thousand braves
on each side. The goals were usually five-hundred yards to one-half mile apart. On occasion, the goals
could be seperated by several miles. Usually a large rock or tree was considered the goal and a score was
recorded by hitting the rock or tree with a ball. Some tribes used goal posts six to nine feet apart, and the
ball had to pass between them for a score, much like today's game.
Games lasted from sunnup to sundown and stretched over the course of two or three days.
Lacrosse games were originally used to toughen braves for actual combat. There were even times
when games were played between two tribes to settle their differences or disputes.
It was not until the early 1800s that the French pioneers started playing lacrosse seriously. With
their participation in the sport came the first signs of turning lacrosse into a more civilized game.
Canadian dentist W. George Beers standardized the game in 1867 with the adoption of set field
dimensions, limits to the number of players per team, and other basic rules. Little did the French settlers
know that they would be credited for being the forefathers of lacrosse, along with the indians. New York
University fielded the nation's first college team in 1877, and Philips Andover Academy (Mass.), Philips
Exeter Academy (NH.) and the Lawrenceville School (N.J.) were the nations' first high school
teams in 1882.
In the early 1900s lacrosse became recognized as a "force to be reckoned with." It was during this
time that the game was first played in Olympic competition, and the United States Intercollegiate
Lacrosse League (USILL) was formed. In 1926, the USILL was replaced by the United States
Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association, which is still the governing body of lacrosse today.
Lacrosse continued to grow in America during the mid 1900s, and today the game is played by
over 500 colleges and universities, as well as over 1400 high schools countrywide. Women's lacrosse is
booming too. Over 100 colleges and universities, along with 150 high schools, currently sponsor programs.