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Hand games aim to teach culture and build community

Jul 14, 2016 | 7:12 AM

A game played long ago is being revived in communities who lost it.

The Sakicawasihk powwow in North Battleford featured hand games for the first time this year, something Bill Wapass of Thunderchild First Nation said is important to Aboriginal culture.

“The game has been played (at Thunderchild) for as long as we can remember and a lot of the surrounding communities lost it, but it’s starting to come back now,” he said. “The people in our area and community and neighbouring reserves are all starting to know what the game is and what it’s about.”

Hand games are played in teams, with eleven sticks, two marked bones and two un-marked ones. Players hold one of each bone in their hand and the aim is to pick the un-marked bone. If a player choses incorrectly, they have to give-up a stick. The aim is to win all eleven sticks.

“When you get into the game, you think about nothing else except the game so it’s a really good stress reliever that way,” he said.

Wapass said he learned from his grandfather the story of how the game came to Cree people and why it’s considered a healing game.

A long time ago, before Europeans came to Canada, a Cree camp was raided. The victims wanted their belongings back and set off to find the people who stole from them. Just after the warriors passed a river, they were ambushed by those who stole from them as the raiders expected the Cree group would seek revenge.

The Cree were slaughtered, but the raiders left two badly injured men alive to tell the story of how they were beaten. The two wounded warriors started to make their way home, but were gravely injured. One died as the pair headed back to the river and the other started to feel his life slipping away when he saw four mystical creatures, like dwarves, come out of a hole in the ground. It was a father, mother, daughter and son, who brought the warrior into their home under the river.

The family played hand games with the wounded warrior and sang for four days and four nights. When they were done playing, he was fully healed and brought the healing game and his story back to the Cree people.

Wapass said he’s played the game his whole life, even as a young boy with rocks and crayons. Although Thunderchild has held onto the game, he said many other communities close to them lost it. His uncle told him when he was young he remembered playing the game with people from Saulteaux and Moosomin First Nations, but they don’t play it anymore.

Wapass said different versions of the game are played all over western North America, from the Northwest Territories to California. There are just minor differences, like using a different number of sticks or aiming for the striped bone instead of the un-marked one.

Powwow is a good opportunity to teach communities about the game, Wapass said. Through playing with other communities, hand games can be a unifying, bringing people together to heal.

“There might be conflict between certain communities and that’s not uncommon, but when those communities come together to play the game they forget all of that,” he said. “You get all the communities coming together and playing hand games and they consider themselves one big family. Then they separate, go back home and they’re still that family.”

 

Sarah Rae is battlefordsNOW’s court and crime reporter. She can be reached at Sarah.Rae@jpbg.ca or tweet her @sarahjeanrae. Concerns regarding this story can be addressed to News Director Geoff Smith at 306-446-6397.