Traditional Blackfoot Games
with Shane McDougall
By Celeste Halliwell, PhD Neuroscience
The Double Ball game was a highlight at the National People’s Indigenous Day at Galt Gardens in Lethbridge, Alberta. Shane McDougall and his family were there to facilitate and participate in traditional games.
Double Ball
“In Double Ball we play with teams, usually 5 players on each team. It’s like Lacrosse, you have to catch the ball with the stick and run towards the goal. Scoring for each team can occur in three ways: if you throw the ball under the goal, it is worth one point, over the goal, two points and if you can straddle the ball on the goal, it is worth three points. You cannot touch the ball with your hands, or check, or stick other players”.
“We always start the game with everyone coming together into the center with their sticks to form a tipi and vocalize a shrill”.
At that time the referee will throw the ball into the center where players will try to stick the ball to run to the opponent’s goal.
“I have made these goals for Double Ball with repurposed tipi poles. We don’t just throw them away after they get old and tired, we can use the sticks for other purposes. We re-use old tipi pegs for game equipment too, such as sticks for Make the Stick Jump or for Run and Scream”.
“These games today we use for Truth and Reconciliation. We want to build relationships will all people on Turtle Island we call North America. The larger sticks are used in the Hand Game that we use to for gambling. There is usually a lot of money involved. A smaller version of the Hand Game is the mini–Hand Game using the smaller sticks and the stakes are also smaller, such as Canadian loonies and toonies”.
The Hand or Stick Game is the most widely distributed game and has been found among 81 tribes. It has been considered that this game was so well distributed because it was a game played entirely by gestures and could be played by anyone as a sign language [3]. In Southern Alberta, this game was always accompanied with singing. It would begin to be barely audible and sound like a murmur but would gradually increase in volume until it reached a high pitch then sank to a low bass sound. The high- and low-pitched songs would be repeated and slowly died away. Those who were hiding the bones would sway in body, arms and hands in the air rhythmically with singing to confuse the guessers in the game. The stakes were often high; sometimes three or more horses and even personal clothing was lost [3].
The Atlatl is known as an ancient form of equipment used for hunting that long preceded the bow and arrow and was used to propel spears faster and farther when hunting game. They would have a hook on one end and a socket to hold darts or spears for propulsion [1].
Technology and History of the AtlAtl Spear Throwers
Atlatl’s have been found in European Upper Paleolithic sites in France and Spain from 15,000 years ago, and 11,000 years ago in the Americas. The term Atlatl (atul-atul or aht-LAH-tul) is from the Nahuatl language of the Aztec people, who were using the Atlatl when encountered and recorded by the Spanish in 1500 [1,2].
“We used to use the Atlatl as an extension to throw our arrows with more force to seize our game. If the fish or game weren’t dead, you could use it as a club to kill your dinner”.
“Then the women would come and clean the fish and children would come in to get the fish or game for processing. All of us would leave because the smell attracts animals from afar”.
“We would never hunt close to our home. We would usually hunt upwind on the other side of the river, so that we wouldn’t encounter the bear, kiááyo, and wolf, makóyi (wolf). We don’t want to hunt those animals, we just want the buffalo, iinii”.
“This is the Hoop and Arrow game. The object of this game is to drive the arrow through the center of this hoop as it rolls down a corridor. When I roll the hoop, you will run along it and try to spear it through the center”.
Hoop and Arrow
A favorite pastime of the Blackfeet is a type of gambling game, or game of chance, that was played with a small wheel called the “it-se’-wah” or ring hoop. This is a game of dexterity that requires great skill of throwing arrows at a small rolling wheel with the intention of passing the arrow between the spokes. The wheel measured about 3 or 4 inches in diameter with beaded spokes. The different beads represented different points awarded and was dependent on the position and nearness to which beads the arrow passed through. At the end of the course would stand two men who would gamble against each other. A crowd would also gather to bet on the two sides. When the wheel, or it-se’-wah was rolled, each man at the other end of the course would throw their arrows at it. The player who scored the first 10 points would win [4].
At the University of Lethbridge, Shane currently instructs students with traditional methods of making tools for use including game equipment, as he was partnered with the Agility Innovation Zone department in the summer of 2024 with the responsibility to “Indigenize” the department.
As part of his project, he held a traditional games day involving numerous students for an educational experience of traditional games. The day began with a prayer in Blackfoot from his mother, a Piikani elder. Thereafter, introductions to equipment and games began.
Stone House Game
“These are decorated stones that tell part of a story. The storyteller will arrange the stones in the order of the occurrences. This stone is the calling stone or buffalo stone; iniskim-. In the past, we didn’t have books, or anything like that, especially Wi-Fi and computers. We couldn’t ask Google to tell us the story. Our people are from an oral culture, or storytelling culture. With the Stone House Game there is the storyteller, the listeners, and the referee”.
The Story: “Although our people became to live life with makóyi who had shown them life is still very hard for the people, they were often hungry. One day, iinii, the buffalo, took pity on our people. A lady called Weasel Woman was collecting water from the river near her camp when she heard something calling her from the bushes. When she looked closer, she found a stone that spoke to her. The stone explained how it could be used in ceremony. It could be used to call the buffalo to the buffalo jump, pisskan. The Weasel Woman took the iniskim back to the camp. She told the spirits and leaders about the ceremony called the buffalo. The people followed her instructions and soon they had plenty of meat and many hides for their lodges and their covers. There are numerous iniskim on the prairie today. You can find them if you’re a good person, you feel good and you’re at one with nature. Many people use them in sacred bundles and prayer bundles”.
The Stone House Game is a good test for attention, receptive listening, and working memory to process details of a story while planning and re-organizing the sequence of events for articulation of the story back as precise as possible.
Other events were games of skill and dexterity: Double Ball with four teams per game, Hoop and Arrow, and Make the stick Jump
Make the stick jump is a Blackfoot game of stamina and dexterity that was traditionally played by young boys and was designed to improve throwing accuracy for hunting small game. This game was a favorite and can be played by anyone [8].
Make the Stick Jump would usually be played with five sticks, but the game can still be played with three or four sticks. The sticks are planted into the ground up to six feet apart forming a line that stretches away from the starting line. The sticks usually have carved lines in them to indicate the number of points awarded for knocking the stick over (i.e. One line on the stick closest to the start line and five lines on the farthest). The objective of the game is to knock down the sticks beginning at the closest stick and ending at the farthest. Players can play as individuals or in teams [5].
A popular ball game of skill was Ball and Tail, or Slingball.
“The object of this game is to grab the ball either by the tail or by the ball while sitting. When you have a firm grip, roll back with your feet and ball going over your head, then release the ball toward the goal”.
This game was observed among the Hopi Powamu who called it the sunwuwinpa. The tail on the ball had a loop that was attached to the players toe before slinging the ball overhead [6a].
Ring Toss
It is uncertain whether the game of ring toss has one sole inventor or a specific period of humanity for playing the game.
The game has been considered to be as old as the ancient Greeks and Romans with some records of its presence during the Middle Ages in Europe as a recreational activity at fairs and festivals. The Ring Toss game had become a staple of outdoor recreation during the nineteenth century [7]. Although this game is not a traditional Indigenous game, It is believed to be a game that has been adapted from European settlers [6b]. The Saux and Foxes of Iowa have been observed to play a game resembling ring toss and hoop and arrow. Men or boys would be divided into two sides with each side having 4 rings. Each player would have four arrows. Players would shoot at rolling rings with their arrows. The side who hits all of the rings with their arrows would have the first chance to roll the rings into the arrows standing in a row. If the player hits an arrow with a ring he threw, he wins that arrow [6c].
References
1. World Atlas Association. (2024). About Atlatls. Retrieved online July 2024 from: About Atlatls – World Atlatl Association.
2. Thought Co. (2019). The Atlatl: 17,000-year-old hunting technology. The technology and history of the spear thrower. Retrieved online July 2024 from: The Technology and History of the Atlatl Spear Thrower (thoughtco.com).
3. Culin, S. (1992). Games of the North American Indians. (Pg. 267, 269). Volume 1: Games of Chance. University of Nebraska Press, U.S.A.
4. Culin, S. (1975). Games of the North American Indians. (pg. 444). Dover Publications: New York.
5. Honoring Tribal Legacies (2021). Retrieved online 2021 from: https://blogs.uoregon.edu/honoringtriballegacies/other-resources/other-educational/native-games/physical-games/make-the-stick-jump-blackfeet/.
6. Culin, S. (1992). Games of the North American Indians. (Pg. a681, b789, c448). Volume 2: Games of Skill. University of Nebraska Press, U.S.A.
7. Davis, C. (2024). Ring Toss: What year was it invented. Retrieved online July 2024 from: Ring Toss: What Year Was It Invented | Storables.
8. High Five. Indigenous games for children. Retrieved online June 2021 from: (https:// www.nscrd.com/uploads/document/files/indigenous-games-for-children-en.pdf