I48 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



when the noted Indian, Pontiac, planned a surprise for destroying 

 the scattered forts held by the English on the northwestern frontier. 

 On the 4th of June of that year, the garrison at Fort Michili- 

 mackinac, unconscious of their impending fate, had left the fort, 

 attracted by an Indian game of lacrosse. Utterly absorbed in the 

 game, they were unmindful of the movements of the Indians. 

 Soon a ball was thrown from the field, dropping within the pickets 

 of the fort. 



This was the Indian's signal. Running as if to regain the ball, 

 they pressed on, forcing their way into the fort and swinging their 

 tomahawks (which the woirien had carried concealed under their 

 blankets), fell upon the English with such fury that, it is said, not a 

 single one escaped. 



Lacrosse has undergone many changes since primitive Indian 

 days. Now fourteen or fifteen players comprise a team; the ball, 

 early of wood and later replaced by one made of scraped and 

 moistened deerskin, stuffed hard with deer's hair and sewed with 

 sinew, would hardly find place with modern players; and the early 

 curved stick with its crude strappings would illy compare with 

 the symmetrical curved hoop and artistic netting so prized by its 

 wielders. 



Many of the modern sticks are still made by Indians. There is a 

 factory on the St Regis Indian Reservation, employing Indians, 

 where the sticks are made by machinery, but the handmade sticks 

 of the Iroquois are considered the best of Indian make. 



On the Grand River Reservation, in Canada, there lives an old 

 Seneca Indian chief who, though totally blind, is famous for his 

 sticks, from the sale of which he derives a fair income. 



As to the origin of the certainly Indian game, different Indian 

 nations claim it, the strongest claim being made by the Iroquois 

 of New York State and Canada. But it must remain a vexed ques- 

 tion for our Indianologists. 



