Lacrosse. The sport of sticks and balls was basically invented in Menukten. Well, not Menukten per say. In Menukten, the sport is only as old as the squonk settlements on that land. But the Menuktenese squonks can claim something in regards to the sport beyond any other nation in the WLC 18: squonks received the game directly from the Creator.
Elder tradition says that when the Creator saw how sad the squonk people were when they would hide themselves away from all living creatures and weep at their hideousness, she invented a game for the squonks to play so that they would forget about their appearance and have fun in each other's company. That game was lacrosse. The rules were different: originally there were about 100 people on each team and the goals were in separate villages. But the roots of lacrosse are clear: a game to celebrate life and honor the Creator.
Squonks took to lacrosse like flies to sugar and soon all major rituals and ceremonies in squonk society involved the game. Lacrosse became much more than a way to honor the Creator Spirit. It became a complex ritual of harmony and interconnectedness with all the peoples of the land: the no-leggeds, the two-leggeds, the four-leggeds, the wingeds, the finned. Lacrosse became so important to the people that the coaches and managers of lacrosse teams were often the community's most respect holy men and women.
So you could say that Menukten is easily the most experienced team in the WLC, even though it is there first. Sure the game is different, and sure it has been lifted from its ritualistic and spiritual context and played solely for its own sake. But lacrosse runs in Menukten's blood. It was the squonks who taught the Native Americans of the eastern seaboard and southern Canada the game they called the Creator's. And though American and Canadian palefaces took the game and changed the rules, squonks found they could easily adapt their traditional lacrosse skills to the new context. True, at times it felt that the new rules were an invasion, an extension of all the broken treaties, forked tongues and habitually lying of the white man. But though the whites may have shaped lacrosse to their own liking with their medicine, Menukten's lacrosse has the blessing of the spirits.
Emma Crooked-Leg sighed and popped the tab on a can of fruit juice. The gentle breeze felt wonderful out there on the balcony. It was springtime in Anditia, and the wind brought the soothing aromas of daffodils, tulips and lilies. It was intoxicating against the black night, with the stars sparkling above in the emptiness and the Milky Way flowing across the sky as if some artist had dipped his brush in white paint and flicked the colors into the depths of night.
The surrounding solace did nothing to soothe the ragged frustration burgeoning in Crooked Leg's stomach. It was their first game in the WLC and they had lost, by four goals to The Sarian. True, the Sarian were a pretty high ranked team and by all rights Menukten should have expected to be able to beat them. But lacrosse is our game, Crooked Leg reflected with some venom, the Creator originally taught it to us.
She clenched her jaw and indulged in the flow of vehemence. But through the whirling images, she remembered the old woman.
She had gone to an old medicine woman to do a vision quest before she left for Anditia to compete in the WLC, as is traditional for all Menukten athletes. She sat boiling in that sweatlodge next to that smelly old woman, the air saturated with super heated steam and a smell of pine cones as thick as a cloud. Vision quest, indeed. The only visions she was getting was how much better it would be to use this time to practice.
As if reading her mind, the old woman whispered to her in that burning fog.
"My, dear, why do you play?"
Why do I play? That's easy. I want to win.
She told her so.
The old woman just shook her head and then, after a long silence, whispered, barely audibly.
"What a paleface answer."
As Crooked Leg sat leaning in her chair on the balcony, the chill air caressing her bare arms, her head began to nod, and then she slumped forward in sleep, her drink untouched on the table beside her.
She had a dream. A dream of animals. A dream of otter, mouse, deer, bison, bird, lizard, dog, elk, and goose people all playing lacrosse, all laughing and feasting together, all dancing around the sacred pole, arms in arms, like the Ghost Dance of old. A dance to bring in the New World.
Crooked Leg understood. The reason for playing was not to win. The reason for playing was to please the Creator.
She walked forward with her stick in her hand, and joined that circle of stamping paws, clapping hooves, and twirling claws.
