Indian Games

Near Michilimackinac, a ball sails toward the palisade. Players race after it as English soldiers look on, unaware that a game can carry more than play.

Andrew McFarland Davis follows lacrosse through early accounts of Native life around the Great Lakes and the northwestern frontier. Drawing on observers such as Nicolas Perrot, he traces a contest that could entertain honored guests, draw whole communities into play, or serve purposes beyond the field. The old descriptions are often muddled, but Davis compares them to recover the shape of the game—and the many meanings it held. How much could an outsider understand of a contest woven into ceremony, wagers, and the dangers of the frontier?

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