Camp teaches ‘Creator’s Game’
The will of the Creator
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The first Creator’s Game lacrosse camp brought kids, lacrosse sticks, gloves, pads and water bottles from around the area to Salish Kootenai College campus on Friday and Saturday.
The Creator’s Game, as the Iroquois call lacrosse, demands respect for the Creator, according to Delmor Jacobs, Cayuga Faith Keeper at the Six Nations Reservation. He said he tells students of the game to act as if their Creator was there so no harsh language should be used during a game.
Jacobs joined Kevin Sandy, director of operations for the Iroquois Lacrosse Program, Alex Alviar and J. R. Daniels, coaches of 10Sticks lacrosse team, Craig Stevenson and Luke Mills to teach about 60 kids about lacrosse, drawing on traditional native beliefs as well as drills to improve skills.
After gear fittings and breakfast, the campers met at the Johnny Arlee and Victor Charlo Theatre where Jacobs told campers how the Creator’s Game came to be, according to Iroquois lore. As part of the Iroquois legend, the Creator and Uncle are brothers. The Creator is good, and Uncle is evil. They first played the Creator’s Game.
Jacobs gives young people an overview of the game and how to play it, drawing upon his 45 years of involvement in lacrosse as a player, coach and builder with the Haudenosaune Ongwehone people regarding the Creator’s Game.
During most games, Jacobs said the most responsible people from each side, usually a chief with a feathered bonnet, and they decide the rules for each lacrosse game. For an Algonquin, the bonnet will have deer horns on it, “the horns of authority,” Jacobs said.
The Jesuits, the Black Robes, called the game “lacrosse” since they thought the sticks looked like a bishop’s crozier. They saw Hurons playing the game in the 1600s. Traditionally, a player cannot touch the ball with his hand.
The Creator’s Game can also be a medicine game. A person who is ill goes to a seer and brings tobacco. The seer decides what sort of sticks and balls should be used in the game. The sick person will hang onto the ball from that game, Jacobs said, and keep it always.
The Creator’s Game also was a nation game, Jacobs explained, and could decide such things as beaver-hunting territory.
“They would get together and have a lacrosse game. The outcome was the will of the Creator,” he said.
“The camp was better than I ever imagined in terms of our numbers, especially numbers of kids from the reservation,” Alviar said.
Sandy and Jacobs brought something nobody ever hears, too, he added. While lacrosse players practiced on the field, anyone who anyone who wanted could sit down with Jacobs, who shared oral tradition and information about the beginnings of lacrosse.
“The Iroquois Lacrosse Program’s goal is to help communities, especially First Nation communities, get a lacrosse program up and going,” Alviar added.
Next year Alviar would like to make the camp bigger, three days, three instructors and maybe even make it an overnight camp. In the meantime, he would like to get a youth program going for the younger players, maybe even a fall season.
The Creator’s Game Lacrosse Camp partnered with Salish Kootenai College, S and K Technologies, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Circle of Trust Program and the Lower Flathead Valley Community Foundation.
“When we pass from here, we’ll play it again. It’s a heaven game,” Jacobs ended.
