Tunica-Biloxi to conduct Native American stickball clinic Saturday

 

   It’s Super Bowl season, and men everywhere are talking about the “Big Game” this Sunday. That phenomenon is not new nor is it even a product of the past half-century. For as long as there have been men and boys -- and even girls and women to a lesser extent -- there have been “big games.”
  For many Native American tribes, that big game was what is now called “stickball.” Some of those “big games” stopped wars or were used as a pretext for launching surprise attacks on enemies. A very big game, indeed.
  “We are trying to bring back many of our traditions that have fallen into disuse,” John Barbry said. Barbry is the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe’s director of Language & Culture Revitalization Program (LCRP).
  One of those lost traditions is stickball, which is the subject of a Stickball Clinic and Exhibition this Saturday for tribal community boys and girls ages 10-16. The event will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the  Chief Joseph A. Pierite Pow Wow Grounds on the Tunica-Biloxi Reservation.
 
Spectators welcome
   “The clinic participation is only open to members of regional tribes,” Barbry said, “but the general public is invited. Spectators are welcome.”
    The program is funded in part by the National Parks Service Lower Mississippi Delta Region Initiative. Barbry said invitations have been sent to tribes in Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi.
   Troy and Krista Langley, veteran stickball players with the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe’s team in Livingston, Texas, will conduct the workshop.
    Participants will learn the basic skills, rules and safety practices of the game. The A-C team will play an exhibition game and then work with clinic participants in scrimmage games.
     LCRP will provide a cook-out for workshop participants.
    “By showing the game and having people who play stickball talk about the game, it will create an interest in the game and maybe plant the seeds that could grow into an active stickball program,” Barbry said. “Maybe, in the not too close future, we can have a team that can go out and compete with other tribes in stickball games.”
    The A-C tribe has an active program and competes against other tribes, including the nearby Coushatta Tribe in Kinder, Program Assistant Ryan Lopez said. 
    Lopez said the Mississippi Choctaws in Neshoba County hold the World Series of stickball every year -- considered to be the largest Native American sporting event in the country.
      Barbry said a local team may not be able to compete with the Choctaws anytime soon, “but it’s a goal of ours. Call it a dream.”
   Stickball -- called punatarahpani (roughly pronounced poo-na-ta-rah-pah-nee) in the Tunica language --  is one of the oldest organized sports in North America and was particularly popular among the Southeastern tribes. 
   Think of it as a pre-NCAA  version of the SEC. Tribes would visit each other just to play stickball, which usually included a feast and dance.
 
Historical highlights
    There are European descriptions of stickball during the colonial era.
   French settlers in Canada were so fascinated with the version of the game played by the Hurons that they defied the Jesuit missionaries in the colony in  the mid-17th Century and started playing the game themselves.
   In 1763, Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa Tribe, invited English soldiers at Fort Mackinac (in present day Michigan) to attend a stickball game in honor of the British king’s birthday. During the festivities surrounding the sporting event, Pontiac’s warriors rushed into the fort and massacred the soldiers.
   In 1834, the Caughnawaga Tribe put on an exhibition of  Native American stickball in Montreal. William George Beers was so impressed with the sport that in 1856 he made certain changes and codified rules to create the game of lacrosse.
   “Lacrosse is similar to the Southeast tribes’ stickball,” Barbry said. “In the South, the tribes used two sticks. The Northern tribes tended to use one stick.”
    Stickball was played up until the mid-20th Century, when it gradually disappeared from the Indian communities.
   As was the case for most sports, stickball not only provided recreation for all age groups, but also provided a good means of mental and physical exercise to build the tribal members’ physical and spiritual strength and helped to sharpen survival and warrior skills.
  With today’s lifestyle considerably more sedentary than in past generations, there is even more need to reawaken interest in physical activity, especially among the young, Lopez said.
 
Game Description 
  Centuries ago, stickball teams could number 100 to 1,000 on each side. Some tribes used the game -- which could last several days with play from sunrise to sunset -- to resolve disputes that otherwise would have resulted in war.
   Today, the number of players can vary -- as long as both teams are equal in size. Teams can be as large as 30 or be 10 or less.
  Lopez said the game was -- and still is -- very physical. In centuries past, fatalities were common. It is much safer today, but still no pads.
  The ball is tossed up to start the game and players attempt to control the orb with their rackets. They catch and throw the ball to teammates with a point being scored if the player touches the ball to the goal post.
   A few of the most common rules include no touching the ball, no swinging sticks at other players and no hitting below the knees. There is still a lot of blocking and bumping on the field, but the only player that can be tackled is the one in possession of the ball and the tackling player has to drop his sticks before he hits the ball carrier.
  Workshop participants must pre-register by contacting Lopez at rlopez@tunica.org or (800) 272-9767, ext. 6433. Space is limited. A parent must accompany children in the workshop.
  Anyone wishing to watch the exhibition may call Lopez for more information. The reservation is on Tunica Drive (La. Hwy 1) in Marksville.