An Aside on Sports and the Native Americans

It wasn't all work and no play for the Native Americans.  As early as 1700 BC, the Olmecs of Central America played a deadly game that was like a cross between field hockey, soccer and racquetball, using rubber balls that could be as large as nine pounds. The Mayans called the game "Pitz" and the Aztecs called it "Ollamalitzli."  Ollamalitzli courts were found from Nicaragua to Arizona in the American Southwest. A modern variation of this game, without the human sacrifice aspect, is called "Ulama."

In North America, Stickball, which preceded Lacrosse, was played by the Choctaw, the Seminole and the Creek. The Choctaw and the Chickasaw also played a game similar to Lacrosse called "Toli" and Lacrosse itself was played by the Nakota, the Cree, the Chippewa, the Sioux, the Iroquois and the Cheyenne.  The Miwok, the Paiute and the Shoshone played a game similar to ice hockey called "Shinny."  The Sioux, the Ojibwe and the Iroquois also engaged in a game called "Snow Snake" which was a bit like bowling, only with sticks and snow. The Choctaw, the Chumash, the Chickasaw and the Creek played a game called "Chunkey," the object of which was to engage in a footrace while getting the point of a stick through the small center hole of a rolling stone disk. This game was so deadly serious that whole fortunes were lost to gambling on it, and it was the direct cause of suicides among those who lost.

Similar to Chunkey was the game of "Hoops." In this game, which was played by the boys in the Crow, Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes, one boy would roll a netted hoop along the ground and two boys would take turns trying to throw their stick through the center hole. This game was obviously very good for training boys to take careful aim.

There was a game called "Pasuckuakohowog" which was like soccer. It was played by the Algonquin-speaking tribes of southeastern Canada, the eastern seaboard, the Great Lakes region and Virginia. The Pasuckuahowog field was a half a mile long and 500 feet wide, and could have as many as 500 players, which probably included several hundred second-string players who were called off the bench due to injuries.  The object seems to have been to get a small stone ball through a hole in the middle of a moving disk.  It was a very violent game that was basically a substitute for all-out war, except that the players wore disguises and afterwards, the two teams got together for a nice feast. 

Otherwise, the Kumeyaay played dice and ran footraces, the Chumash liked to swim and probably body-surf at the beach, and the Mojave also liked to swim in the Colorado River. The Seminole liked to alligator-wrestle but this may be a modern thing done to entertain the tourists. The Miwok children liked to play jacks, the Cherokee children liked to play marbles, and the Apache liked to compete in footraces, archery and horseback-riding.