Indigenous North American stickball

rdf:langString Indigenous North American stickball

rdf:langString Choctaw Indian Fair World Series

rdf:langString Frank Grall

rdf:langString Stickball tournament on the Kullihoma Grounds

rdf:langString Team sports, stick sport, ball sport

rdf:langString Before 18th century

rdf:langString In the summer of 1892, we were near Keokuk Falls on North Canadian River and we learned that a ball game was to be staged between the Tulsa and the Theowalthioa Indians so we waited and watched their preparations. The two tribes moved in three days before the game was to take place. One tribe camped directly south of the other with a strip of land between them, This strip of land was strictly guarded by Indian Braves on horseback. These were from both tribes. There was no passing between the two tribes but they would howl and bark at one another day and night. The braves who were to take part in the game made themselves ready by taking medicine, which they called Spanish Tea. This was made of the bark of red-oak trees. They did not eat and slept little, doing everything in their power to work themselves into a fury of hate and rage - to make themselves fierce and mean was their object. When the time came for the game, the squaws brought out to the grounds ponies loaded with everything that an Indian at that time could get. There were blankets, moccasins, food, beads. These ponies, blankets, moccasins, food, beads and other things were all to be put up as bets on the game. Many white men and negroes would also bet on the game. A big crowd was present. When the game started, it was wonderful to see — how the braves could handle the ball with their handmade clubs, but when the first fellow got the ball some player hit him over the head with a club, peeling the skin until it hung over his ear. As Soon as a player was knocked out, the squaws would carry him off the field, to a pool of water nearby where they would wash his wounds and restore him to consciousness, if possible. The battle was so fierce, that when the game was ended and one side had been chased from the ground, the pool was perfectly bloody. This was the last Indian ball game played in such a brutal manner for the Government took notice of such brutality and sent deputy marshals to the games to prevent such cruelty. At this game I saw players bite one another.

rdf:langString Indigenous North American stickball is a team sport typically played on an open field where teams of players with two sticks each attempt to control and shoot a ball at the opposing team's goal. It shares similarities to the game of lacrosse. In Choctaw Stickball, "Opposing teams use handcrafted sticks or kabocca, and a woven leather ball, or towa. Each team tries to advance the ball down the field to the other team's goalpost using only their sticks, never touching or throwing the ball with their hands. Points are scored when a player hits the opposing team's goalpost with the ball." Several Native American tribes such as the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, Seminole and Yuchi play the sport. Tribe elders organized games of stickball to settle disputes nonviolently. The game of lacrosse is a tradition belonging to tribes of the Northern United States and Canada; stickball, on the other hand, continues in Oklahoma and parts of the Southeastern U.S. where the game originated. Although the first recorded writing on the topic of stickball was not until the mid-18th century, there is evidence that the game had been developed and played hundreds of years before that.