First Nations Women, Games, and Sport in Pre- and Post-Colonial North America
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The historiography of games among First Nations women still is in its infancy. Yet Indian women had access to a wide range of recreational activities that were deeply rooted in each stage of their lives and more especially in all that was ceremonial, ritual, magical and religious. This paper proposes a synthesis of the history and cultural anthropology of these practices in the American Indian history of pre- and post-Columbian North America, through to the end of the Indian Wars in the 1890s. It explores how a gendered approach allows renewed analysis of the contact between traditional American Indian games and modern sports and examines the impact of sporting acculturation on these activities at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The case of the Fort Shaw ‘Blues’ is used to explore the complex relationship that American and native cultures hold with modern women's sports.
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Although sports were introduced into boarding schools to civilize Indigenous males and females, boarding school athletic programs created a context for the celebration of intertribal cooperation and identity.
“Although sports were introduced into boarding schools to civilize both Indigenous males and females (Delsahut & Terret, 2014), especially through the introduction of football and basketball, boarding school athletic programs created a context for the celebration of intertribal cooperation and identity, sometimes on a scale rarely ever seen before.”
From Indigenizing Sport Research: Analyzing Protective Factors of Exercising Sovereignty in North America (2023) · cites this paper as Delsahut & Terret, 2014
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Indigenizing Sport Research: Analyzing Protective Factors of Exercising Sovereignty in North America
Ali-Joseph, A., Leonard, K., & Welch, N. (2023) · Sociology of Sport Journal · doi:10.1123/ssj.2023-0006 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“Although sports were introduced into boarding schools to civilize both Indigenous males and females (Delsahut & Terret, 2014), especially through the introduction of football and basketball, boarding school athletic programs created a context for the celebration of intertribal cooperation and…”
Background
- Authors
- Delsahut, F., & Terret, T.
- Affiliations
- Université de Lyon (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Delsahut, Fabrice
- Venue
- Women's History Review
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2014-08-26
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 976-995
- ISSN
- 0961-2025 (ISSN-L)
- 1747-583X
- OpenAlex
- W2012619283
- Cited by
- 4
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Women s History Review (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Indigenous Cultures and History
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Sports, Gender, and Society
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Physical Education and Sports Studies
- Keywords
- First Nations women, indigenous games, Indigenous sport, gender and sport, Native American history, women's sports, Indian wars
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