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Lacrosse Magazine
November/December 2002
More Than a Game. Lacrosse at the Onondaga Nation connects the current generation with its ancestors.
by Tom Rock

There is a legend. It comes from deep in the green mountains of New York State. It comes from a time when the Iroquois culture dominated the landscape like the highways and Wal-Marts that are there now. It comes from a sense of fairness, a nod of honor, and above all, it comes from a love of lacrosse.

Oren Lyons
Lacrosse Magazine Cover

The animals gathered, according to the legend, and divided into two teams. One side, the bear, the deer and al the mammals joined together; on the other side the hawk, the eagle and all the birds formed the other team. Then the bat came along. He wanted to play with the mammals, but they turned him away because he could fly. So he went to the birds, but they turned him away because he was a mammal. The wise old owl finally convinced the birds to accept the bat. The game was played, and the bat ended up scoring the winning goal, swooping in over the mammals to become the hero.

The legend has taught centuries of Native Americans the importance of accepting all players. But it also illustrates the important posture of lacrosse in Iroquois society. It suggests that lacrosse was developed by the Creator and passed lovingly to his people for his enjoyment just as a parent will enjoy watching a child play with a new toy. It is legend that, even today, older Native Americans share with younger generations as a way of continuing the arc.

At the Onondaga Nation, just south of Syracuse, the legend is still told. That's because Onondaga is one of the places where lacrosse continues to have a grip on everyday life. It is a place where sticks are still curled from steamed hickory, where your clan still determines your team, where old teach young the lessons of life through lacrosse. New York City has its subways and skyscrapers as cultural touchstones, San Francisco has its Golden State and Chicago its lakefront. Onondaga has lacrosse, and life in the Nation is in a constant swirl around it. Lacrosse has been described as one of the Iroquois' most revered traditions and celebration of health, strength, courage and fair play.

"It's a game of respect for each other's gifts," said Chief Irving Powless, who has been playing lacrosse for 68 years and is a link between his grandfather, who played in the late 1800s, and his sons who play and coach today. "Families here have been playing lacrosse together for a long time. It is part of our lives."

click to enlarge
3 yr old Onondaga player

And rightfully so. While lacrosse was played by many different Native American nations before European settlers first witnesses and sculpted it, the versions varied greatly. The Cherokee, for example, played a game where the players used two short sticks, one in each hand. The game played by the Iroquois - a family of six nations that includes the Onondaga - most closely resembled the game played today in both pace and equipment. That is mostly because when the manufactures first began to produce lacrosse equipment in the 19th century they contracted Iroquois designers for sticks.

These days the Onondaga game has fused into the European game, with Native Americans competing and winning at every level from college to professional to international. But once a year, the Onondagas play lacrosse the way their ancestors did.

The field has no boundaries. The game has no clock. The players wear no helmets or pads. It is lacrosse, pure and uninfluenced.

Chief Sid Hill
Everyone plays the game

"Everybody uses a wooden stick and everybody who shows up plays," says Sid Hill who, at 51, is one of the older players to participate in the game. Prayers are said before and after the game to give thanks to the Creator for the sport. There is no set number of players on the field, and no sideline or endline. In the late 1700s, records show an Iroquois game with 600 players on each side played over miles. Teams aren't evenly split, either, and could be unbalanced in a four or five-to-one ratio. Most times teams are divided based on the players' clans, but games can be played between the young and old.

"It could be five against 30," Powless said. "It depends on who shows up."

Players range in age from 10 to 80 - Powless scored a pair of goals two years ago at age 71 - and the game is played to a determined number of goals established beforehand. And as far as equipment, a stick is all that is needed. For the Onondaga, this lacrosse is a game of skills like passing and shooting, not a game of violence. There is no checking in this game.

Most other times, however, the game is played with familiar aggression. At Onondaga, first lacrosse lessons come between the ages of three and five. The Onondaga Athletic Club fields teams in a variety of sports from basketball to football, but the most popular by far is lacrosse. From small fry to high school players, the Native Americans are groomed for the sport. Onondaga athletes have participated in and won NCAA and professional championships, and most recently competed for the Iroquois Nationals in the International Lacrosse Federation World Lacrosse Championships. Neal Powless, son of Chief Irving Powless, was named to the All-World team at attack in 2002, the first player from the Iroquois Nationals to be honored. The team finished fourth in the 15-team tournament.

Box Lacrosse is one of the more popular versions among the Onondaga. Unlike the ancestral game, box lacrosse is played in a very confined area about the size of a hockey rink. It is usually played indoors, but can be played on fields under the sky with plywood borders. This year the Onondaga Nation unveiled a new arena for box lacrosse. The 2,000-seat facility is named Tsha'Hon'nonyendakwha', which translated to "where they play games."

Most of the players these days use the plastic molded sticks available at sporting good stores throughout the world. The influx of such non-traditional equipment has been met with a mix of disappointment and excitement by the Onondaga.

"The number of athletes playing the sport has increased as a result of these plastic sticks," Hill said. "But it has also changed the game quite a bit. You can now take a stick right off the assembly line that is already broken in. Young kids can just pick up a stick and pass and catch. That makes the game a lot easier for them to learn the game."

Face off
Playing outdoor "box"

Easier isn't always better, though, and there are still craftsmen who fashion lacrosse sticks the same arduous way it has been done for centuries. The process starts by finding a hickory that is tall and straight. Wood from the tree is split and hand carved into long sticks of about four feet. It is then steamed so it becomes softer and more flexible, which allows it to be wrapped around a wooden bolt and worked into the curved shape.

When the wood dries, the webbing is made and woven into traditional patterns that are similar to today's modern equipment. The webbing must be tight enough to throw the ball, but loose enough for the ball to be caught. Elm bark was boiled down to its fibers and twisted to form the lacing for the for the webbing in the ancestral equipment, but today even the most tradition-minded players use leather or nylon for the webbing. Few wooden sticks are used in field lacrosse, but in box lacrosse it is gaining popularity among the players.

Perhaps it is the long slow, rewarding process of making the lacrosse sticks that make them so integral to Onondaga life. And beyond.

"When we play a game here on Mother Earth, a game is taking place up there in the Land of the Creator at the same time," Powless said. "So then after we pass away and we are through we have a means by which we can get our stick up into the Creator's world so that we'll play again."