The Creator’s Game: Lacrosse, Identity, and Indigenous Nationhood by Allan Downey (review)

A SUBSTANTIAL BODY OF LITERATURE explores how Indigenous peoples throughout the world have responded to colonization. The scholarship clearly shows that Indigenous peoples have always exerted their agency in trying to make a better life for themselves and their communities. The Creator’s Game contributes to this larger body of knowledge with a focus on sport, specifically with the way two Indigenous communities in Canada—the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy), spanning Toronto to Montreal, and the Skwxwú7mesh, situated along British Columbia’s Pacific Northwest Coast—have used lacrosse to remake and reaffirm who they are as distinct peoples.

The book covers the period from the 1860s to the 1990s and includes general insights into the history of lacrosse as a colonizing tool and specific insights into how the Haudenosaunee and Skwxwú7mesh used lacrosse for their own political aspirations. Either way, the story should resonate with readers who want to know more about Indigenous self-determination and sport in a settler-colonial state.

Much has been documented about the institutionalization of lacrosse and its role in Canadian nation-building, which means there are many excellent jumping-off points for writers to explore. What is unique about this book is that it places Indigenous epistemology and Indigenous perspectives at the center of analysis so that the history is reinterpreted through an Indigenous lens. This orientation is its greatest strength.

Downey appropriately opens with a Haudenosaunee creation story as told by Cayuga Faithkeeper Delmor Jacobs. The story is an elaborate account of the beginning of the earth and of the human race. Soon after creation, the humans were introduced to the game of lacrosse, which the spirits used to settle disputes in the Sky World. The Haudenosaunee adapted the game so that it became an integral part of their lives, serving a number of different functions, from healing ceremonies to cementing community ties. Downey explains that many Haudenosaunee still play lacrosse and that the spiritual foundation of the game, passed down from generation to generation, remains an important part of their culture.

There is a lot to unpack in the book’s introduction, including the way it highlights a profound difference between mainstream organized competitive sport and Indigenous sport rooted in traditional values and beliefs, which is one of the main threads running through the book. The two forms of lacrosse are worlds apart in almost every conceivable way. Downey acknowledges this difference: “This work deals with competitive sport, not with lacrosse played for Indigenous ceremonies” (22). It is an important distinction to make so that readers are not left thinking they are learning about the “traditional” game when instead they are observing how Indigenous peoples have adapted the colonized version of lacrosse to suit their own needs.

Opening with the creation story also shines light on the tensions that exist when traditional Indigenous beliefs rub up against mainstream sporting practices. The latter half of chapter 5, “Reclaiming the Creator’s Game,” makes this abundantly clear, as the clan mothers in 1987 objected to a group of Haudenosaunee women forming a national team, relying on biological and spiritual arguments to keep them from playing beyond the high school level (237–41). Though readers looking for deeper insights on gender relations will likely want more, the volume does well to weave information about women’s lacrosse into the larger picture. Much more could be said about how Indigenous men and women, boys and girls, are negotiating their spiritual belief systems, gender ideology, and notions of tradition in a modern-day context. Thus, The Creator’s Game mirrors other histories of lacrosse by grounding the story in male experiences; all nine oral histories were carried out with notable men.

Many readers will find this book valuable. It enlarges the existing framework for understanding lacrosse, and it should prompt readers to consider how other Indigenous perspectives could enhance this story. Indeed, it might even lead readers to consider how the space of mainstream competitive sport helps and...