Cherokee Stickball

Stickball - A Game of Life
As told by Jerry Wolfe to Rob Hunt

I'll tell you the legend, a legend my father told me about the stickball games.

He said back in the days when the white settlers were moving in, they were having a game, probably up in Big Cove. And he said the new people that came in had never seen a game played - had never seen anything like it.

One of the old men - an old Cherokee man - was sitting on the sidelines watching the young men play. One of the settlers sat down with him and said, "That's quite a game. I've never seen anything like it." And they had a conversation, of course, talked about it. And right toward the end he said, "When did you start playing this game? How old is it?" And he said, "It's old. It's been played generation after generation," he said. "It dates back to who knows when, on back beyond. It started back when the animals of the forest had a ball team."

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Note: This game was very real and played by Indians throughout Eastern North America. In Canada, it inspired the game now called lacrosse.