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Content: Der Aufsatz beschreibt die Ursprünge des Lacrosse-Spiels bei den amerikanischen Ureinwohnern und dessen Entwicklung bis zur modernen Form. Es wird erläutert, wie das Spiel ursprünglich von verschiedenen Stämmen mit unterschiedlichen Regeln gespielt wurde und als religiöses Ritual oder zur Konfliktlösung diente. Im 19. Jahrhundert begannen Kanadier, Lacrosse zu spielen und veränderten die Spielweise, was bis heute Auswirkungen hat. Lacrosse wurde zum Nationalsport Kanadas erklärt und expandierte schnell in den USA, wo es nun von über einer halben Million Menschen gespielt wird.
Referentin: Datum: 09.11.2016
Lehrkraft: Frau Kurs: WSE
American Indians and Lacrosse
The article “American Indians and Lacrosse” was published in the Encyclopedia of American Indian Contributions to the World.
Today, Lacrosse is a game played by two teams with ten players in each team that tries to put a five-ounce ball into the opponent’s goal.
The original sport was first played by American Indians on the North American continent, from what is now Canada down to New York and partly on the American West Coast, but it is uncertain where it directly comes from. What is known is the fact that Jean de Brébeuf was the first non-Indian watching a game in the 1600s.
He told something from curved playing sticks looking like crosiers. Legend says that the name “Lacrosse” was named by him but it is very likely that the game is named from a type of French “stickball“, called “Jeu de la Crosse” what is similar to baseball.
Lacrosse once was a really dangerous game played by young, athletic men. That’s why some people called the game “war’s little brother”. One game was played for at least two or three days from sunrise to sunset, especially during harvest season, when the men did not hunt.
People had many different variations of the game, with everyone named different. Some tribes played the game with two sticks for each of the 100 to 1000 players to throw the soft deerskin-ball into the opponent’s goal that was arranged out of a rock or a tree. The goals were 500 yards to several miles away from each other.
Some tribes called their game “baggataway” or “thearathon”, others called it “dehuntshigwa’es” or “men hit a rounded object”.
Even then, the Iroquois had a stick that was over three foot long with a big, triangular pocket – the preproduction model for the sticks as they are formed today. Furthermore, the Iroquois were known as good and fair players.
Often, the game was played between two tribes to get conflicts out of the way. But mostly they staged a game to please their creator, or due to religious nature, for example preventing bad luck or getting rid of epidemics.
In the 1800s, Canadians started playing Lacrosse and within, they changed the way of playing. This has had effects until now – Lacrosse and Ice hockey, which was built out of Lacrosse, remain important sports in Canada.
With the founding of the Dominion of Canada, the sport was distinguished as a “Country’s national sport”. Eventually the Montreal Lacrosse Club determined rules. While Lacrosse won other people’s affection, more and more Indians ceased playing Lacrosse, maybe also due to the fact that some people thought that the traditional sport prevented Indians from becoming “civilized”.
After the forming of the English Lacrosse Union, they launched a version for women, that was similar to field hockey and more equal to the traditional Indian game than the men’s version of the game. Lacrosse was held in the Olympic Games in 1904 for the first time.
Nowadays, Lacrosse is played by over half a million players in the United States, also because of the offers for women and men in colleges and universities.
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