A Jesuit Describes the Wendat Game of Lacrosse

During the seventeenth century, French Jesuit missionaries traveling in territory that is now part of Canada documented an established Indigenous ball-and-stick contest. In his report on the Huron mission dated July 1636, missionary Jean de Brébeuf described Wendat villages competing against one another in the game in present-day Ontario. He called it crosse, the French term that English-speaking players in Montreal later adopted as lacrosse. Although European observers recorded the pastime at that point, the roots of the game among Indigenous communities in North America extended back for centuries.

Traditional Indigenous contests carried deep ceremonial, communal, and spiritual importance. Known variously as baggataway or the Creator's Game, the activity was held to offer thanks to the Creator or Master, to engage in symbolic warfare, and to fulfill ceremonial rituals. Competitors took part as warriors seeking honour for themselves and their communities. Rather than relying on enclosed fields, these historic games were played by large numbers of warriors on open grounds that could be more than a kilometer long, and Brébeuf described whole villages contending against each other.