Page:Lacrosse- The National Game of Canada (New Edition).djvu/41

 24 two spooney sticks. Charlevoix says the Algonquins in Canada tried to keep the ball from touching the ground during the progress of the game, and that if a player missed a catch, the game was lost for his side unless he could send it to goal in one throw. It was never allowable to pick it up from the ground with the hand, but it was customary to use the hand in tapping or blocking it away from the body.

The wildness of the old game is graphically sketched by Catlin (who saw it played by 600, 800 and 1000 Choctaws and others, at a time), Basil Hall, Sir James Stewart, Lanman and others. The players would trip and throw each other, and sometimes as occasion offered, take flying leaps over the heads of stooping opponents, or dart between their extended legs. "In these struggles," says Catlin, "every mode is used that can be devised to oppose the progress of the foremost who is likely to get the ball, and these obstructions often meet desperate individual resistance, which terminate in violent scuffling, and sometimes fisticuffs!—when their sticks were dropped and the parties are unmolested while settling it between themselves, unless it be by a general stampede to which they are