Page:Lacrosse- The National Game of Canada (New Edition).djvu/22

 Rh games; but the original crosse was not the present shape, and had no more resemblance to a trundling bat than a cross-bow has to a "Snider." With the original game, too, was associated peculiar customs and ceremonies which distinguished it from any other field sport. Its uniqueness was and is beyond dispute.

The Indians may justly be awarded the credit of having invented the game of Lacrosse, as well as the snow-shoe, toboggan, and bark canoe; and unless some archaeologist can prove that it was played by the extinct races of a cultivated and superior type of humanity said to have existed on this continent long before the advent of the Spaniards, it is only fair that they should have the honor.

An Algonquin who was asked the origin of his race pointed to the rising sun. So may we as indefinitely answer the query, "When and how did the game of Lacrosse originate?"

Originally, it bore different names; each tribe calling it "ball" in their own peculiar dialect. By the it was called "Tehontshik8aheks [sic];" by the  "Teiontsesiksaheks;" by the  "Baggataway." The crosse was called "Teionstikwahektawa" by the Iroquois; "Te88aa [sic] Naton" by