The sport of the Americas is as varied and complex as
its kaleidoscope of cultures and histories. Nonetheless,
common threads run through traditional sport in the
native Western Hemisphere. These commonalities include the ball game as one major unifying theme in Native American history and prehistory and the nature of
sport in Native America as part of a playful worldview
that gives a particular flavor to Native American life
and culture.
In the late 1400s, in North and South America, 13
distinct language families existed, with hundreds of
languages and distinct cultural groups. Each group had
its own recreational activities, which included physical
skill games or sports. The themes that run through all
of these activities can be subdivided into sports of
physical skill, sports of mechanical skills, sports involving animals, and ball games.
Sports of Physical Skills
These activities involve competition that stretches the
limits of physical strength, endurance, and speed. Generally individual sports, they do in some cases pit
teams against each other. These sports include racing,
swimming, wrestling, boxing, pulling, and shoving.
Foot racing is probably universal among the peoples of North and South America. The most noteworthy
of these racing events are the distance events that feature endurance more than speed. Among the New World’s best-known racers are the Tamahumara Indians of northern Mexico. These people have been
known to run over 240 kilometers (150 miles) at a
stretch and play games that involve kicking a ball or
carrying a log over a course of more than 120 kilometers (75 miles). The Zuñi and other Pueblo Indians of
the southwestern United States engage in marathon
running. A form of ball racing is also common among
the Pueblo peoples, as well as the Pima, Papago, and
certain Indians of the North American Plains (e.g.,
Mandan). Among the Ge in South America, relay races
are run in which contestants carried heavy logs said to
be about one meter (three feet) in length and weigh 90
kilograms (200 pounds). Log races are also common
among the tribes of eastern Brazil.
Wrestling is equally common to Native America,
though reported more frequently among the South
American than North American groups. Among the
Navajo, two men compete amidst great ceremony, each
attempting to seize the other and throw him on his
back to the ground. Similar practices are common
among South American tribes. Among the Yahgan and
several Guiana tribes, group wrestling is common.
Competitive swimming is likewise common among
Native Americans, who were noted for their expertise.
Although probably not the first to use the “crawl”
stroke, American Indian swimmers, in particular
among groups like the Mandan, have developed the
technique to its full effectiveness.
Other such traditional sport activities include various forms of tug-of-war, a contest in which teams pull
on opposite ends of a large rope in an effort to drag the
opposition across a line or through a wet, muddy, or
otherwise uninviting neutral zone. Among the Ona,
teams of men compete against each other in an analogous activity in which they line up in two rows and
strain to shove the opposition backward in what might
be called a “push-of-war.” Boxing, though not widespread, does occur among Native Americans.
Mock fights and battles are also common to Native
American traditional sport. Some involve hurling
stones, small clubs, or burning sticks. For example,
among the Quimbaya of South America, a line of
women face a line of men and boys, and both rows assault each other with weapons or projectiles, with several participants usually wounded or even killed. Of the
various competitive tests of strength involving lifting
or pulling skills, one of the most interesting is a competition among the Cozarini of South America to
demonstrate strength by pulling a heavy wooden bar
through two perpendicular poles.
Sports of Mechanical Skills
The sports of mechanical skills also involve physical
skills and place a premium on hand-eye coordination,
but their focus is the mastery of a piece of equipment
or technique. These include competitive archery, spearthrowing, snow snake, hoop-and-pole, chunkey, and
other sports using a particular device. Though most focus on individual performance, some can be played as
team sports.
Archery is of the most common forms of sporting
entertainment among the Indian populations of the
New World. The bow and arrow was a highly developed
and widely used technology across both the North and
South American continents long before European intervention. In sport, Indians shot for distance, speed,
and at moving targets. The Mandan practice a game of
arrows in which the object was for a single archer to
keep as many arrows as possible in the air at a time.
The Goajiro of South America competed by shooting at
pieces of fruit or skin balls tossed into the air.
Snow snake is one of the most popular traditional
sports among the Indians of Canada and the northern
United States. This sport involves tossing a stick (“the
snake”) approximately two meters (six feet) in length
across the ice. The object is to sling the stick further
than the opposition. Though reserved largely for men,
the sport is also played by women, but generally with
smaller sticks. Variations of snow snake are adapted to
certain regions of the southwestern United States, and
similar games have been reported among Indian
groups in South America.
Hoop-and-pole is also traditional among Native
Americans. The game’s several variations all involve
throwing a pole, a spear, or a dart at a rolling hoop, aiming to have it come to rest close to the inert hoop, ideally
underneath it. Although more commonly reported in
North America, the game and variations of the game appear in certain areas of the South American continent.
Chunkey, played largely by Indian groups in the
southeastern United States, is a variant whose the object is to toss a long stick or spear beside a rolling chunkey stone in such a way that the two come to rest at the
identical spot.
Animal Sports
A few of the traditional animal sports may pre-date European influence, but most involve the horse and thus
are dated only within the past 500 years. (Hunting and
fishing are, for these populations, subsistence skills, not
sports.)
Horse racing and other forms of competitive horse-back riding are popular; Competitive horse racing is
also reported among several South American groups.
Dog-sled racing is a popular event among Alaskans
today, and some Eskimos participate, from the many
regional races to the major annual event, the Iditarod.
Some dog racing is reported in the modern Eskimo
community, but early ethnographic literature does not
mention it, suggesting that it has developed only since
European colonization of Alaska.
Another interesting, perhaps unique, sport involving animals has been called the “turtle game,”played by
the Cashinawa of South America. This activity involves
a group of men immobilizing a land turtle by binding
it with cord and then attempting to repel efforts by a
team of women to release the turtle.
The Ball Game
The ball game is the cornerstone of traditional sports
among Native Americans. All variations involved two
competing teams with equal numbers of players, the
movement of a ball by a team of players up and down a
field, scoring points by striking or penetrating the goal
of the opponent, and winning by being first to accumulate an agreed-upon total number of points.
The earliest records of the ball game come from
Mesoamerica and suggest this sport may have been
played by the Olmecs over 3,000 years ago. In the classic ball games of prehistoric middle America, teams
representing whole communities used their hips to
drive a large rubber ball up and down a well-defined
ball court; thus the frequent use of the term “hip-ball
game” to describe the event. The object was to strike
the goal of the opponent or knock the ball through
small rings that protruded from the walls on the side
boundaries of the court. Players were not allowed to
touch the ball with their hands in this fast-moving
game, and sometimes the ball play resulted in injury,
even death.
Later the Mayans would play the game (pok-tapok); then the Aztecs (tlachi). The great ball games of
the Aztecs were of economic, social, political, and religious significance. They were the setting for heavy
gambling, they drew large crowds of spectators, their
outcomes frequently had political consequences, and
always there were elaborate ritual trappings.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the Mesoamerican ball game was exported to areas far from the
valley of Mexico. Ball courts have been found as far
north as the southwestern United States, where it appears that as recently as 1,500 years ago the Hohokam
peoples were playing the classic ball game. The game,
or some variation, has found its way into many areas of
South America as well.
In many ways the various types of ball games that
ultimately emerged in both South and North America
descend from the Mesoamerican ball game. Equipment
varies; the ball is driven by various means of kicks,
butts, or sticks; and the rules are different from one setting to another. But underneath its outwardly diverse
manifestations, the American ball game is essentially
still the American ball game.
Perhaps the most widespread North American ball
game was shinny. Similar to modern field hockey,
shinny is played with a curved stick that is used to propel the ball. The object of the game is to drive the ball
through the opponent’s goal. Among many groups,
shinny is played largely by women. A similar game is
played in South America.
Other ball games include double ball, football,
hand-and-ball, tossed ball, and fire ball. The latter is
played by members of the Iroquois tribe and involves
kicking a burning ball down a field and through an opponent’s goal. Among South American tribes, the
Chake and several other Andean groups play a type of
basketball in which the object is to pitch a small ball or
round object into a basket affixed to the end of a pole.
The Tucuna and several other Amazonian groups are
said to play a type of badminton, standing in a circle,
trying to keep a shuttlecock made of maize husk in the
air by striking it with the palms of their hands. The Yahagan play a similar game using a ball of “seal gut
stuffed with feathers or grass.” Among the Ge of South
America, a paddle ball game is played in which participants hit a small rubber ball back and forth with paddles attempting to keep it from hitting the ground.
One of the most interesting American ball games is
one known as the racket game, battattaway, match
game, or stickball. This game, known to the Choctaws
as toli, is the parent of lacrosse and remains popular today among several tribes in the southeastern United
States. The game involves two teams who compete by
moving a small ball toward the goal of the opposition
by using only rackets. In most cases, the contests are
accompanied by extensive ritual and celebratory behavior, surrounded by heavy gambling, and marked by
violence and frequently bloodshed.
The racket game was played and is still played by
several North American Indian groups, in addition to
the Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, Catawba, and
Seminole, for example. Though largely limited to the
Eastern Woodlands of the United States in its distribution, stickball illustrates the major characteristics of traditional sport among the native populations of
North and South America. These sports involve entire
communities, heavy gambling, represent alternatives to
armed conflict, had minimal rules and routine violence, and were infused with ritual (including sorcery).
Also, despite the apparent focus on competition,
winning was not the principal goal in the classic stickball match. It was as though there were an unstated assumption that ultimately fate determines the outcome
of a ball game. The individual player could only do his
or her best, and this became the real purpose of the
game.And, absent supernatural foul play, the best team
won. So, discipline, quality of performance, seriousness
of commitment, and those other elements that make a
team the best were the goals of the individual combatants.
Native American Traditional
Sport and Worldview
The significance of traditional sport among Native
Americans goes beyond the playing fields, the courts,
and the tracks. From the Eskimos in the Alaskan north
to the Yahgan of Tierra del Fuego, sport has its roots in
the very essence of Native American life, what I have referred to in another context as a “playful worldview.”
That all-encompassing playfulness in Native American
life sets it apart from the more serious, less playful style
of industrial Europe, a contrast perhaps at the heart of
the clash between the native cultures of the New World
and the invaders from the Old. Europeans saw it as an
indication of indolence and sloth when in fact it was
simply another way of dealing with the day-to-day realities of human life. Native American traditional sport
and the seeming preoccupation of Native Americans
with that sport are simply illustrations of this approach
or style. Traditional sport is critical to understanding.
Traditional Sport Today
Currently, traditional sport in the Americas is limited
largely to rural and out-of-the-way areas and the
back streets of large cities. In many cases, sports that
once were an important part of community life have
disappeared.
In some cases, there are deliberate efforts to revive
these activities in some formal way.Among the Indians
of the U.S. Southeast, the racket game has in the past
two decades made a significant comeback. But generally, there is no concerted effort to feature and preserve
the traditional sports of America.
Traditional sport is woven deeply into the fabric of
folk life across the North and South American continents, both past and present. It is a statement about
culture, about meaning, and about life. It assumes a
special significance as an element in the intranational
relations between ethnic and racial groups in the complex, pluralistic world of today’s Americas. Traditional
sport in North America and in South America is thus
an institution that deserves greater attention than it
now commands from scholars, academic organizations, special interest groups, and governments.
—KENDALL BLANCHARD