Wtf was. . .
A sport that louis riel would have played?
ajitpaul mangat, Staff
Being a rebel against the Canadian government, a radical politician and the leader of an entire race of people cannot be an easy day job. One has to be fit mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. This is, I am sure, a quandary that beset Louis Riel on many an off day, between rebellions — how to become a more well rounded individual.
Being a member of the Métis, whose way of life was based on physically demanding activities like hunting bison, the fur trade, and lengthy canoeing excursions, playing challenging sports would have been an important part of his existence in order to develop everyday survival skills. During his life Louis Riel would have played sports that we now consider traditional in Canada, like lacrosse, along with more esoteric games native to his Aboriginal culture, like those of the Dene.
Lacrosse
As Canada’s official national summer sport, the game of lacrosse has deep roots with Native North Americans, who invented it. The sport has a long, largely positive, history, as the Canadian Lacrosse Association website says: “[lacrosse] exists as a link between the disparate components of Canadian history, First Nations and European Settler. It remains the rare occurrence in which an element of native culture was accepted and embraced by Canadian society.”
In its original 15th century form, the sport was played by hundreds to thousands of men on a field that stretched as far as a couple of miles and often for two to three days. It was a very dangerous sport due to its playing balls being made of stone, wood and sometimes enemy’s heads, which left many players dead or severely injured. Lacrosse was originally created as a competition to settle inter-tribal disputes, to prepare adolescents for combat, and, most importantly, to appease the spirits. This is the type of lacrosse that was played during Riel’s life.
Since Riel’s time, however, the sport has undergone some changes in order to make it a more friendly, convenient experience for players and spectators. The type of lacrosse that dominates today is box, or indoor, lacrosse. Games are much smaller in size, shorter, and safer.
Despite these changes lacrosse still contains many of the major elements that defined it in its inchoate phases. Thus, Riel would have likely embraced the sport due to its adherence to its strongly Aboriginal roots, and its ability to prepare one for battle.
Dene games
Spending much of his life in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Riel would have been exposed to a group of games representative of traditional forms of competition and activities of interior Native (Dene) cultures. The Dene is an Aboriginal group that lives primarily in the Arctic regions of Canada, including northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba.Five of these games are still played in the biannual Arctic Winter Games.
The first of these games is the Stick Pull, in which two competitors attempt to pull a greased stick out of the others’ hand.
The second game is the Finger Pull, in which two competitors lock fingers and try to straighten their opponent’s finger or cause them to forfeit.
Pole Push, the third game, involves two teams of four; the object is to try and push the other team out of the ring.
The fourth event, the Snowsnake, consists of throwing a spear underhanded along a snowfield, with the object being to throw the spear the longest.
The final game involving two teams of four is called Hand Games and involves hiding tokens in their hands; the object of this game is to deceive the other team into incorrectly guessing the location of the token.
The first three events are competitions of strength, the fourth event is played to improve one’s hunting ability, and the final event is a competition of strategy. All of these games would have been valuable to Riel, who needed this spectrum of skills for battles on the field, his resistance movements, and in the courtroom, his infamous trials.
