Indigenous Peoples’ Month
November is known as Indigenous Peoples’ Month, a month to honor the history, heritage, and culture of Indigenous people throughout the Americas. Our history as a country has been violent and destructive towards Indigenous people - our Indigenous population has fought, survived, and thrived throughout the challenges and adversity with a warrior spirit. I have Onondaga blood flowing through my veins and am grateful for the spirit of my fathers’ side -he is Onondaga. From the first landing on our coastline to political movements still going on today, there have been efforts to eradicate the Indigenous population. It started with Christopher Columbus looking for spices, and Hernando De Soto searching for gold, to eventually Andrew Jackson’s expansion, resulting in the Indian Removal Act. Today, we face modern-day exploitation through oil pipelines, and unimaginable high numbers of missing women and children. In 2020, we continue to see Indigenous people stereotyped in sport mascots throughout the country. Through all of this, our Native population has overcome massive obstacles, fought for survival and continued to exist.
Books have been scripted, movies have been made and countless articles written to document the atrocities faced by Indigenous people. While history must be addressed when speaking to Indigenous people, this article looks to transcend that. We can begin to heal, educate and enlighten by celebrating Indigenous culture, history, and heritage through the game of Lacrosse.
Lacrosse is a Haudenosaunee game: it is known as a Medicine Game and believed to be gifted to us by the Creator. Here in Onondaga, every young lacrosse player is told of the first lacrosse game - played on the other side of the stars. A game between the winged and the ground animals, each animal bringing something special to the game. The hero of the story is the bat. Other players underestimated the bat, yet the bat scores the game-winning goal. The moral of this story is each player brings a unique gift to the game, a special contribution to the game as a whole. When the game is played with a clear mind and every ounce of effort in your body - you are creating medicine to heal other players, onlookers, and those in the community. Every time you pick up your stick to play and honor the Medicine Game, you are paying homage to the Haudenosaunee, the ones who came before. In 2016, I had the honor to bring the Medicine Game to the Standing Rock Sioux protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline. This allowed us to bring positive energy to a cause we believed in.
By understanding where lacrosse comes from, and honoring that while playing - you are honoring and healing the earth. Lacrosse is the fastest growing team sport in North America. By sharing the roots of the game as a player, teammate, coach or parent, you are helping to heal, honor and bring awareness to Indigenous people. By healing and honoring Indigenous people we can create a change for a positive future for the next generations of Indigenous men and women.
Throughout history we’ve seen that it takes massive energy to create a change. The first law of conservation of energy states that “energy can neither be created, nor destroyed, only converted from one form of energy to another.” Indigenous people have faced a violent, and turbulent history. By changing the narrative and honoring our game of lacrosse, we can shift the historically negative energy to positive energy. We can affect change. Let’s use November, Indigenous Peoples’ Month, as an opportunity to be a positive change. Educate fellow teammates, educate your players and educate your children. Let’s contribute to an optimistic future for the game of lacrosse and Indigenous people.