About: Native American recreational activities

Early Native American recreational activities consisted of diverse sporting events, card games, and other innovative forms of entertainment that tribes invented using natural resources and materials. Most of these games and sporting events were recorded by observations from the early 1700s. Common athletic contests held by early American tribes (such as the Algonquian, Cherokee, Iroquoian, Sioux, Lakota, Choctaw, and Great Lakes peoples) included games of stickball (an early form of lacrosse also known as “Little Brother of War”), chunkey, archery, darts, foot races, and canoeing. Card and dice games were commonly used as forms of entertainment among tribes such as the Iroquois and Lakota. Several contests and games invented by American indigenous groups contributed to modern-day sports (l