Traditional games held at SKC
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PABLO — Some of the oldest games in America were the subject of a weekend training held at Salish Kootenai College. In a Culture for Survival academy, teachers learned how to integrate traditional Indian games such as Make the Stick Jump, Shinney and Single Pole Lacrosse in educational programming. They also crafted balls and sticks for the games.
Led by Dee Anna Leader, director of the Traditional Games Society, the instructor certification took place from Oct. 20 to 22. These dates coincided with the Montana Education Association conference so teachers could attend and receive Montana Office of Public Instruction renewal credit. Teachers from Arlee, Polson, Two Eagle River, St. Ignatius, Missoula and Billings attended.
Also the SKC education department paid the fees for all its preservice teachers with a Kellogg grant, according to Amy Burland, Ed.D.
Burland coordinated the training and said about 40 level 1 students, 20 level 2 students and one level 3 student attended. Since so many native games are involved, the groups are separated into levels so participants can concentrate on games they haven’t learned before.
The classmates played games, such as Sticks in Fist and Y-Arrow game, on the first day of training to learn the rules and what skills were involved.
Sticks in Fist is a children’s version of the Stick Game, Bryan Brazill explained, and teaches intuition and probability. Brazill, a Group Life Supervisor at Kicking Horse Job Corps, and his son Bradley are instructors for the Traditional Games Society. Bradley is a level 2 youth instructor. The Brazills also presented at Arlee School’s Native American Awareness Day last spring. They cut the willows peeled for sticks during the crafting portion of the workshop.
The second day of the training began at 8:30 a.m. and was a full day of making Shinney balls and sticks and Doubleballs, and peeling willows for sticks for Make the Stick Jump and arrow and hoop games.
Each participant was given a kit with basic supplies: fabric to stitch the balls, buffalo hair to stuff the Shinney balls, slices of deer horn for the plum stone game, balloons to fill with sand for the middle of the balls and rope for the Tie-up game.
In addition to the games already listed, Level 1 participants needed to complete pieces and parts for the following: string games, Rock in Fist, Sticks in Fist, Plum Stones/dice, guessing sticks, guessing rocks, guessing stones, gathering stones, kickball, Run and Scream, Make the Stick Jump, Tie-Up game, Stone People, Ring and Pin and Ring the Stick, Doubleball, Stick and Ball, Shinney ball/stick, Hoop and Dart and Hoop and Long Arrow.
SKC preservice teacher Wendy Clairmont said her favorite game was the plum stone game. She will use the games in her classroom. Clairmont and a group of other preservice teacher hand-stitched balls for Shinney and Doubleball before going outside to peel willows.
With only a day of crafting, attendees were hustling before instructor sign-offs on equipment, Saturday morning tests and closing ceremonies.
Some participants brought their children, as was the case with Jani Costilla and Phillip Sure Chief, who brought son Joe Sure Chief. The couple, students in the teacher’s education program, came from Browning.
Cactus Runsabove attended with dad, Walter. Walter is the Native American homeschool coordinator for Billings West High School.
“I grew up playing the games,” Walter said, from his Northern Cheyenne and Assiniboin culture. “Now I’m showing Cactus how my great-grandma showed me.”
Walter’s favorite game was Make the Stick Jump.
According to the Traditional Native Games website at www.traditionalnativegames.org, the game was a favorite game of Blackfeet boys, but anyone can play.
A game to improve throwing accuracy, four sticks are whittled and placed at different distances from a line. The sticks furthest away have the highest point value. The game players stand behind the line and throw a set number of rocks at the sticks. If a rock hits the stick, it would make the stick jump and the points for that stick were awarded to the thrower. Highest score wins.
Although he doesn’t teach in a public school, Todd Wilson from the Center Pole Foundation attended.
The Center Pole Foundation at Wellknown Buffalo is a nonprofit organization for youth on the Crow Indian Reservation, according to its website, and empowers children to reach beyond poverty and follow their dreams.
Wilson said the foundation puts on summer camps and would incorporate traditional games into learning. He and game partner Jaeger Valandra were the first to untie themselves in the Tie-up game.
“It’s a Gandhi thing,” Wilson said, smiling and shrugging as he showed other participants how to untie themselves.
In some Indian cultures, such as the Inuit and the Turtle Mountain Chippewa, the Tie-up game was a way of making young people work together, according to an OPI lesson plan.
If two young people were fighting or arguing, an aunt or an uncle would often loosely tie the two together. One game player would have a rope with a slipknot on each wrist. The other player’s rope would be crossed over the other’s rope before being secured with slipknots on each of his or her wrists. The two players are told that they must work together to become separated from each other without taking the slipknots off their wrists. The players must work together and cooperate with each other to get free.
Leader said the first research on traditional games came from Browning Middle School in 1990. Although she probably wouldn’t mention this, Leader was the administrator. An experimental project between the middle-schoolers and the community college, 20 old-time Blackfeet games were collected and sanctioned by the elders.
No game is taught until it has been sanctioned by the elders of that tribe, Leader said. Many of the games have different variations in each tribe.
When Leader moved to Arlee, a group of teachers, including Kathy Felsman, Arlene Adams and Joyce Silverthorn, wrote a humanities grant to research Salish and Kootenai games.
Then the Blackfeet tribal college and SKC presidents got together in 1999 and thought a nonprofit foundation for the recovery of games should happen, Leader explained.
“Some of us just stuck with it,” Leader said. “Volunteering, writing grants, etc. The games just spread all over the place, even Canada.”
That’s the organization’s purpose — recover, restore and reintroduce traditional games.
