INDIAN GAMES. 171 



entirely original. It had this advantage over the ordinary 

 plan of starting tbrough the agency of an umpire or some 

 disinterested party, that no favors could be shown. By 

 means of this description — if doubts existed before — we 

 are enabled to identify, beyond cavil, the game of lacrosse 

 as one of the amusements indulged in by our Pacific coast 

 Indians. 



William Strachey^ contributes an interesting account of 

 games in Virginia in the beginning of the seventeenth 

 Century. He refers to ball playing as follows : "A kynd 

 of exercise they have amongst them much like that which 

 boyes call bandy^ in English, and maye be an auncient 

 game, as it seemeth in Virgill ; for when ^neas came into 

 Italy at bis marriage with Lavinia, King Latinus' daugh- 

 ter, yt is said that the Troyans taught the Latins scipping 

 and frisking at the ball." 



The comparison, by Strachey, of the ball game played 

 by the Virginian Indians to bandy, fiivors the inference 

 that the game was rather hockey than lacrosse. Capt. 

 James Smith describes such a game among the Wyandots. 

 " They commonly Struck the ball with a crooked stick," is 

 his language.* It is nevertheless quite probable that 

 Strachey's ball game was lacrosse. Our previous exami- 

 nation of French authors has shown that they almost in- 

 variably compare lacrosse with tennis. If the game which 

 Strachey saw was lacrosse, his comparison to bandy 



2 The First Booke of the Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia, etc., by 

 William strachey. Edited by R. H. Major, London, for the Hakluyt Society, 

 1849, p. 77. 



3 Bandy ball is described by Strntt. In the Chatto & Windus Edition, London, 

 1876, this description appears, p, 170. Accompanying it is an Illustration repre- 

 Bent'mg *^ Bandy- Ball, XIV Century." In the scene portrayed by the artist, two 

 Players are seen with hockey sticks in their hands. One is aboiitto strike the ball 

 which lies upon the ground at his feet. 



* An Account of the Remarkable Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Col. 

 James Smitli, during his Captivity with the Indians in the years 1755-1759. Cia- 

 cinnati, 1870, p. 77. 



ESSEX INST. BULLETIN, VOL. XVIU. 22 



