"He must die unless the whole country shall play crosse:" the Role of Gaming in Great Lakes Indigenous Societies

Summary

Lacrosse, Canada’s national sport, originated with the pre-contact racket and ball games of the Iroquoian and Anishinaabeg peoples of northeastern North America. Like many traditional Indigenous games, racket and snow snake events represented much more than sport, involving aspects of physical prowess, warfare, prestige, gambling, dreaming, curing, mourning and shamanism. Gambling, in particular, was an important cultural activity that according to seventeenth century accounts, resulted in some participants returning to their villages naked, having wagered and lost all their possessions, including their clothes. This paper examines the ethnohistoric and archaeological evidence for gaming in the Great Lakes Region and explores the roles these games played in peoples lives.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Games People Play: Prehistoric Games of Indigenous North Americans

Keywords

Spatial Coverage