# Lacrosse: The National Game of Canada/Chapter 1

CHAPTER I.
ORIGIN OF THE GAME OF LACROSSE.
The origin of Lacrosse, like that of the Indian race from whom we derived it, is lost in the obscurity which surrounds the early history of this people; but that it had its first existence in his wild brain is claimed in his own traditions, and entitled to every belief. The subject, however, is a mystery, and the most patient research cannot but meet with bewilderment. Indian traditions concerning it are scarce and unreliable, while anything that might be learned from their hieroglyphics is met by the fact that they could not transmit more than outward events. Doubtless there were rude Pindars and Homers in the "forest primeval" who could have saved their early records from oblivion, had there been means to preserve them; but as it is, the more we try to unravel such mysteries as the origin of the Indian ​and many of his customs and recreations, the deeper we get into difficulties that have no solution.
The origin of Cricket, in enlightened Europe, is uncertain, though traced to the 13th century. How much more difficult to discover the origin of Lacrosse in a savage country, unknown till the century after. If obscurity be any proof of antiquity, Lacrosse is certainly senior among field games.
Spanish cruelty sullied the great discovery of America, and made "pale-face" a synonym for everything base and unjust; and French and English conduct afterwards, confirmed the justice of the complaint. Under the circumstances, it was to be expected that they would each have more familiarity with Indian warfare than Indian recreation; and this may account for the comparative silence of American history on their native sports. It was not until a conciliatory policy was adopted, that such sports as Lacrosse were played for the amusement of the whites.
Civilization has not destroyed the Indian's love of hoaxing. Charlevoix, Catlin, and a host of others, were unmercifully hoodwinked and humbugged, and one need not travel far to-day to meet with the same ​characteristic. A genuine hoax is as old "fire-water" to a red man: it is told to clusters of admirers, and repeated from wigwam to wigwam. While endeavouring to find out the opinion of intelligent Indians as to the origin of Lacrosse, we had some charming and plausible legends invented for us impromptu, and the difficulty of centuries expeditiously unravelled in the rocky recesses of Caughnawaga. If the soil of that settlement is not favorable for peaches, it unquestionably produces a spontaneous imaginative genius, not to be rivalled by anything white or red in Canada. We are satisfied, however, that the Indians of Canada know nothing whatever about the origin of their native field game.
I had the good fortune to travel on the Grand Trunk, side by side with the late Hon. Thos. D'Arcy McGee, about a year before his cowardly assassination by the "Fenian Brotherhood." The subject of conversation turned upon Lacrosse, prompted by the sight of a Crosse on the rack overhead; and Mr. McGee first suggested to my mind the resemblance between the national game of Canada and the Irish game of Coman, or trundling. Some time after, a communication appeared in a Port Hope paper, by a ​writer holding the identity of origin of the Indian and Irish races with the Phœnicians, and ingeniously attempting to show sufficient resemblance between Lacrosse and Coman to make a plausible argument for his theory. The former part of the proposition involves scientific questions hardly within my province to discuss, but it seems rather far-fetched. If this ethnological view be correct, it would scarcely seem possible that the game of Lacrosse should now be almost the only prominent remnant of the Phœnician origin of the Indian race. Were I inclined like the Irishman who traced his genealogy into the Ark, and the locality of Paradise to his potato patch, which he was irreverently offering for sale, I might enter into archaeological researches, and build up theories from hypothesis; but this would only lead astray.
It is quite possible that there should be resemblances between Lacrosse and Coman, as between any game of ball played with a bat. In "Strutt's Sports and Pastimes" may be read some very close coincidences, but nothing to prove their identity. The writer aforesaid hinges his conclusions greatly upon the present resemblance between the sticks used in both ​games; but the original crosse was not the present shape, and had no more resemblance to a trundling bat than a cross-bow has to a "Snider." With the original game, too, was associated peculiar customs and ceremonies which distinguished it from any other field sport. Its uniqueness was and is beyond dispute.
The Indians may justly be awarded the credit of having invented the game of Lacrosse, as well as the snow-shoe, toboggan, and bark canoe; and unless some archaeologist can prove that it was played by the extinct races of a cultivated and superior type of humanity said to have existed on this continent long before the advent of the Spaniards, it is only fair that they should have the honor.
An Algonquin who was asked the origin of his race pointed to the rising sun. So may we as indefinitely answer the query, "When and how did the game of Lacrosse originate?"
Originally, it bore different names; each tribe calling it "ball" in their own peculiar dialect. By the Iroquois it was called "Tehontshik8aheks;" by the Algonquins "Teiontsesiksaheks;" by the Objiways "Baggataway." The crosse was called "Teionstikwahektawa" by the Iroquois; "Te88aa Naton" by ​the Algonquins; and by other tribes, names as euphonious and intelligible, sometimes as long as the stick itself. The single tree or pole goal was called "Iorhenoketo-ohikta" by the Iroquois.