American Indian Lacrosse; Little Brother of War
Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994. First paperback edition. First printing [stated]. Trade paperback. Format is approximately 7 inches by 10 inches. xvi, 360 pages. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliographic Note. Bibliography. Index. Inscribed the author on the half-title page. Inscription reads For Abbie Chessler, with best wishes. Tom Vennum April 1996. Traces the Native American history of lacrosse, describes its rules, equipment, techniques, and regional differences, and recounts legendary games of the past. From an early age, music and Madeline Island figured prominently in the life of Thomas Vennum Jr. There, on the island, he discovered a passion: Ojibwe music and culture. Vennum worked for more than two decades as senior ethnomusicologist at the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife documenting Ojibwe culture and music in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Vennum Jr. graduated from Yale University and Harvard University. He fell in love with ethnomusicology and yearned to learn more about Ojibwe music. He sought the help of Ojibwe elders to learn about their traditional music and accurately document it. He penned scholarly books on Ojibwe music, wild rice, lacrosse’s indigenous roots and on the life of Ojibwe singer Bill Baker. To understand the aboriginal roots of lacrosse, one must enter a world of spiritual belief and magic where players sewed inchworms into the innards of lacrosse balls and medicine men gazed at miniature lacrosse sticks to predict future events, where bits of bat wings were twisted into the stick's netting, and where famous players were, and are still, buried with their sticks. Here Thomas Vennum brings this world to life. More