The game of lacrosse is another game along with Chunkey and Stickball, that Native Americans created and played, that still lives on prominently today. In its early Native American forms, lacrosse was played with a wide range of rules and strategies that differed in different areas, but across the board the game was played with wooden sticks, oftentimes with nets attached to them and with a ball made from deer hide. The Haudenosaunee were the original creators of the game, and played it with teams of between 100-1,00 men, on borderless fields. The original form of the game tended to be quite violent with broken arms and legs being a frequent circumstance, and games could last even span multiple days. Much like Chunkey and Stickball, lacrosse games were played to prepare tribes for war, as well as being seen as a social event where tribes would get together for trade and fun. Tribes would often play lacrosse in order to settle territorial disputes, while keeping intact diplomacy between tribes and avoiding warfare and the loss of human life. Often Native Americans would even gamble on lacrosse games, and “some would not hesitate to wager their wives, children, and themselves into servitude.” (Aveni).

Figure 1:  Image of large lacrosse game with many players on field without boundaries (Vennum Jr).

Within the lacrosse world, it is commonplace to refer to lacrosse as “the medicine game”, or “the creators game”. This comes from the belief of the Haudenosaunee people that the game was a gift from the creator and was to be played for the creator. It is said that the act of playing the game has a medicinal effect and is said to be able to heal the sick. This belief in the medicinal powers of the game of lacrosse carries on as the game has evolved and the present day Haudenosaunee continue to play the game that was given to them by the creator, with its medicinal nature always in mind.

It is Haudenosaunee tradition for children, when they are born to be given a lacrosse stick with a shaft made from shagbark hickory that is repeatedly dried and steamed until it is bent like a shepherd’s crook. Next, sticks are cut down to size, and the pocket is made from leather or rawhide. These sticks are supposed to stay with them their entire lives and when Haudenosaunee lacrosse players die, they are buried with their stick by their side. As the game of lacrosse has grown and spread beyond the Haudenosaunee nation, equipment and sticks have changed and in present day lacrosse, most players opt for a metal shaft and plastics head with a synthetic pocket, but many present day Haudenosaunee lacrosse players choose to continue the tradition of playing with the wooden stick in honor of the game and it’s history within their culture.

Figure 2: Team Iroquois Lacrosse Players with Traditional Sticks at 2014 World Games. (Maracle, 2023).

Reference List:

Kennedy, Lesley. November 19, 2021. “The Native American Origins of Lacrosse.” History.com. https://www.history.com/news/lacrosse-origins-native-americans. 

Aveni, Anthony. “The Indian Origins of Lacrosse.” The Colonial Williamsburg Official History & Citizenship Site. https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/Foundation/journal/winter10/lacrosse.cfm.

“Brief Origin Of Lacrosse.” Nabb Research Center Online Exhibits. https://libapps.salisbury.edu/nabb-online/exhibits/show/native-americans-then-and-now/native-americans-and-lacrosse/brief-origin-of-lacrosse

Maracle, Candace. July 1, 2023. “Master lacrosse stick maker Alfie Jacques passes on tradition before dying.” CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/alfie-jacques-onondaga-haudenosaunee-traditional-wooden-lacrosse-stick-1.6889893

Vennum Jr., Thomas. “The History Of Lacrosse.” Brooklyn Lacrosse Club. https://www.brooklynlacrosse.org/lacrosse-history 

Further Reading:

The Making of a Wooden Lacrosse Stick: https://eopsports.com/the-making-of-a-wooden-lacrosse-stick/

Timeline of the History of Lacrosse:  https://worldlacrosse.sport/the-game/origin-history/

Use-wear analysis is a technique employed by archaeologists, more specifically lithic analysts, to help understand the function of found tools. It is performed through macroscopic and microscopic analysis of these tool’s surfaces and edges in order to determine what the tools might have been originally used for. It is most commonly utilized for stone or rock tools but can be used on other materials as well, such as flint and bone. The term wear is generally defined as “the progressive loss of substance from surfaces as they move against each other”. (Adams, 2017.) and by studying this wear archaeologists are able to understand what purpose the tool served. Through use-wear analysis, questions such as “what material were these stones used on?”, “how were they used?’, and “why were they used?” are all able to be answered. (Texas Beyond History.)

An example of findings determined through use-wear analysis is the difference between pottery polishers and stone polishers. In a blog published by the Desert Archaeology Inc, Dr. Jenny Adams discusses how she was able to determine these slight differences using use wear techniques. “The stones selected for polishing pottery or stone are fine grained, meaning that the stone burnished the surface being polished rather than abrading it.” (Adams, 2017.) In contrast, “The shiny surface on a well-used pottery polisher has numerous abrasions caused by temper and other particles in the clay.” (Adams, 2017.) Archaeologists are even able to tell which parts of the tool were held in the hand of the person using it through microscopic analysis and studying the abrasions as seen below in Figure 1. When you compare Figure 1 and Figure 2, it is easy to see that Figure 1 is clearly much more rounded and smooth than the granular appearance in Figure 2. Hence, Figure 1 displays the area in which the used held the tool, whereas Figure 2 displays an unused area of the tool.

Figure 1: Granular, unused part of the tool (Adams, 2017.)

Figure 2: Rounded and smoothed part of the tool held in hand (Adams, 2017.)

The process used to conduct use-wear analysis varies for each study, but typically the artifacts are examined using “bright field microscopy” (Adams, 2017.) in their unwashed condition so that potential residues left over such as animal hair, blood, plant grains, wood fragments, can be identified and used as possible clues to help further understand the purpose of the artifact. Next, the scientists look at the striations on the rock as well as the bumps and abnormalities or smoothness on the edges of the rocks to understand where the rock bore the most force, and in turn how that translates to its use. By using residues as well as examining the striations imprinted on the tools, archaeologists can usually come to a conclusion and determine the tools’ use-actions which include “scraping, planning, slicing, whittling, boring, and cutting”. (Texas Beyond History.)

Reference List:

Adams, Jenny. November 30, 2017. “The Tell-tale Art: Recognizing Use-wear on Stone Tools.” Desert Archaeology, Inc. https://desert.com/use-wear/ 

Texas Beyond History. https://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/varga/images/use.html 

“Use-wear Analysis.” Newcastle University, The Cutting Edge. https://research.ncl.ac.uk/thecuttingedge/aboutourproject/use-wearanalysis/