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The more I read about Lacrosse the more I like it.
(I'm reading mostly wiki so I'm well aware I don't know much of anything yet.)
Wiki reckons it's called 'the little brother of war' and the Iroquois used to use it instead of having a killing fight. There were six nations of Iroquois so if they wanted to stick together they needed to not kill each other. There could be a hundred or a thousand people on each 'team'. Each team's goal could be miles away and they all rushed around together, because passing or dodging was for wusses. They'd get all dressed for war with the paint and suchlike, and then take up sticks and chase a ball around, trying to throw it at a fish on a big pole. And sometimes they'd have a game "for the pleasure of the Creator", which sounds like someone was all "What if God is a really big sports fan?"
Given how many civilisations seem to have been more like "What if god was a really big fan of beheading" I'm rather liking the difference. I mean you hear stories about vikings and old celtic druid stuff, and it's always about Them Other Guys, but heads seem to be a theme. I heard when I was a kid about that version of football where it ended with beheadings, and school is always keen on telling us about human sacrifice, but I do not recall previously hearing about the cultural importance of stickball.
We should have more like that. That sounds like it would work much better.
Also wiki says the name lacrosse came from the dudes writing home about it thinking the sticks look like bishop's crosiers, which lead to me wiki wandering off to read up on religious hierarchies again. 'Ordinary' does not mean only what I thought it meant. Which is cool.
It do make me wonder though, reading about all these descriptions of rituals, would the same dudes watching a modern sports game write in the same ways? Would they watch Six Nations Rugby and conclude we do that instead of wars? The sports fans take it serious enough. Or Eurovision, there's a ton on tumblr where people try and explain the song contest as a way of not having wars, just giving each other Nil Points in a very pointed fashion. Which, you know, works.
Also the thing where I looked at lacrosse sticks and also thought religious regalia, or wizardly rather, it gets stuck here. Because repurposing random sports equipment seems fair enough, once said sport is played all lots of places, but repurposing something used for prayers is a different big fish entirely.
Lacrosse has already kind of nicked stickball and stripped it though. None of that nifty context attached, yesno? Sad. I was looking at other sports and it's uncomfortable how many of them are just a teensy colonial. It's not just see a good game, play it; it's more like see a good game, change it until you can claim the natives are no good at it, and make sure the equipment gets expensive. Sport has layers.
I haven't spent much time thinking on sports before. Sport movies and F&SF don't seem to have much overlap, outside of Ender's Game.
... elaborately carved and decorated sticks, websites dedicated to making you your very own custom designed 60 inch pole from a bunch of different woods, big curvy net on top that can, for goalies, turn it into 72 inches of catch and throw equipment. spells carved into ball shapes ready to chuck at people. shiny possibilities.
... cultural appropriation? not shiny.
Tis hard to write in English about non-Christian religion without getting stuck with Christian associated words. Call someone a Witch, Priest, Cleric or Reverend and it seems like choosing sides. It's tempting to leave English, maybe even do made up words, but since people have to translate them back in their heads... tricky. But nicking words from the Catholic church is still nicking them. So then what do you got left?
Different power relation though.
... I was just looking up some words and found a rather dubious looking page reckoning that Roman Catholic 'Cardinal', because based on Cardo or hinge, equals priest of Janus.
... *Ethan grins*.
A lot of times and places seem to have gone with variants on Father Mother Sister Brother.
But then once you're looking at translations they all seem to be Priests. Like I'm reading a list of Roman religious hierarchies and sacerdos, augur, flamen, pontifex, in this list all means priest.
(Why am I reading Roman religious words? Aside from 'wiki is wide'. Surely I have something better to do?)
Now I'm imagining a little table kind of like the one for List of Comparative Military Ranks or the Ranks and Insignia of Nato, only instead of Admirals you'd have Popes or whatever. But that's unlikely to compare very well at all. Sounds like a great big argument. There's a wiki Index of Religious Honorifics and Titles, but it don't have Roman ones on it so it's probably just for the now-ish.
Okay, I'm being random, I'll go be random without typing it.
(I'm reading mostly wiki so I'm well aware I don't know much of anything yet.)
Wiki reckons it's called 'the little brother of war' and the Iroquois used to use it instead of having a killing fight. There were six nations of Iroquois so if they wanted to stick together they needed to not kill each other. There could be a hundred or a thousand people on each 'team'. Each team's goal could be miles away and they all rushed around together, because passing or dodging was for wusses. They'd get all dressed for war with the paint and suchlike, and then take up sticks and chase a ball around, trying to throw it at a fish on a big pole. And sometimes they'd have a game "for the pleasure of the Creator", which sounds like someone was all "What if God is a really big sports fan?"
Given how many civilisations seem to have been more like "What if god was a really big fan of beheading" I'm rather liking the difference. I mean you hear stories about vikings and old celtic druid stuff, and it's always about Them Other Guys, but heads seem to be a theme. I heard when I was a kid about that version of football where it ended with beheadings, and school is always keen on telling us about human sacrifice, but I do not recall previously hearing about the cultural importance of stickball.
We should have more like that. That sounds like it would work much better.
Also wiki says the name lacrosse came from the dudes writing home about it thinking the sticks look like bishop's crosiers, which lead to me wiki wandering off to read up on religious hierarchies again. 'Ordinary' does not mean only what I thought it meant. Which is cool.
It do make me wonder though, reading about all these descriptions of rituals, would the same dudes watching a modern sports game write in the same ways? Would they watch Six Nations Rugby and conclude we do that instead of wars? The sports fans take it serious enough. Or Eurovision, there's a ton on tumblr where people try and explain the song contest as a way of not having wars, just giving each other Nil Points in a very pointed fashion. Which, you know, works.
Also the thing where I looked at lacrosse sticks and also thought religious regalia, or wizardly rather, it gets stuck here. Because repurposing random sports equipment seems fair enough, once said sport is played all lots of places, but repurposing something used for prayers is a different big fish entirely.
Lacrosse has already kind of nicked stickball and stripped it though. None of that nifty context attached, yesno? Sad. I was looking at other sports and it's uncomfortable how many of them are just a teensy colonial. It's not just see a good game, play it; it's more like see a good game, change it until you can claim the natives are no good at it, and make sure the equipment gets expensive. Sport has layers.
I haven't spent much time thinking on sports before. Sport movies and F&SF don't seem to have much overlap, outside of Ender's Game.
... elaborately carved and decorated sticks, websites dedicated to making you your very own custom designed 60 inch pole from a bunch of different woods, big curvy net on top that can, for goalies, turn it into 72 inches of catch and throw equipment. spells carved into ball shapes ready to chuck at people. shiny possibilities.
... cultural appropriation? not shiny.
Tis hard to write in English about non-Christian religion without getting stuck with Christian associated words. Call someone a Witch, Priest, Cleric or Reverend and it seems like choosing sides. It's tempting to leave English, maybe even do made up words, but since people have to translate them back in their heads... tricky. But nicking words from the Catholic church is still nicking them. So then what do you got left?
Different power relation though.
... I was just looking up some words and found a rather dubious looking page reckoning that Roman Catholic 'Cardinal', because based on Cardo or hinge, equals priest of Janus.
... *Ethan grins*.
A lot of times and places seem to have gone with variants on Father Mother Sister Brother.
But then once you're looking at translations they all seem to be Priests. Like I'm reading a list of Roman religious hierarchies and sacerdos, augur, flamen, pontifex, in this list all means priest.
(Why am I reading Roman religious words? Aside from 'wiki is wide'. Surely I have something better to do?)
Now I'm imagining a little table kind of like the one for List of Comparative Military Ranks or the Ranks and Insignia of Nato, only instead of Admirals you'd have Popes or whatever. But that's unlikely to compare very well at all. Sounds like a great big argument. There's a wiki Index of Religious Honorifics and Titles, but it don't have Roman ones on it so it's probably just for the now-ish.
Okay, I'm being random, I'll go be random without typing it.