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Print'Beautiful Games': An Interactive Map
Baseball might be America’s pastime but it’s not necessarily the most American of sports—at least not by our standards here at Native Peoples. According to Dr. Gregory Cajete (Santa Clara Pueblo), director of Native American studies at the University of New Mexico and author of Spirit of the Game: Indigenous Wellsprings, sports have played a huge part in Native heritage and the evolving of Native cultures. In his own community of Santa Clara Pueblo, a form of shinny—which is akin to stickball—is played at planting time.
Our map highlights nine Indigenous games of North America that, in many cases, bring together ceremony, celebration and the universal spirit of sport. There are scores more Indigenous games across the continent, some of which can be found in the Heard Museum’s exhibit “Beautiful Games,” showing through November 2015.
Connect with us via Facebook, Twitter or email to share a beautiful game indigenous to your community or region. Share a photo, a brief explanation of the game, your geographic region and tribe, and we'll post to this map.
– Native Peoples
