Lacrosse

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

an Indian game of ball. It is played with a single ball. Each player carries a crosse, or slender bat. One end of it is bent into a curve and lashed with cords of rawhide, like a tennis racket. A goal is erected at each end of the grounds. The players, now usually twelve on a side, aim to drive or carry the ball through their opponents' goal. Rules are very similar to those observed in playing basket ball . No player must interfere with another. A small India rubber ball is used. It is carried or thrown with the crosse and must not be touched by the hand. A player is entitled to knock the ball out of another's crosse by striking it with his own, but in no other way. When any player sees that he is likely to be impeded, or likely to lose the ball, he is at liberty to throw it to another of his party who catches it with his crosse and in turn runs with it. In many respects lacrosse resembles the game of hockey. It is the national game of Canada. The Canadians learned it from the Indians. For an account of the original game, as played by the natives, the reader is referred to Park-man's volumes. In 1763 the Ojibway and Sac Indians played a game of lacrosse on the parade ground before the stockade of Mackinaw. The officers and soldiers of the garrison were scattered about, watching the game. The ball was driven, as if by accident, to the gate of the fort. The naked, leaping Indians, 200 or 300 in number, rushed in a body after the ball. They snatched tomahawks from beneath the blankets of the squaws, who were sitting around the gate of the stockade, and fell upon the unsuspecting garrison, cutting the soldiers off almost to a man. See Hockey ; Games