I have Handgame fever!

At the Multi for Junior Handgame Tournment! :)
Okay, Handgames were AWESOME! I had the best time! The Junior Handgame Tournament was Tuesday-Sunday, and I was there from Thursday-Saturday. It's all such a hooplah of drumming and singing and colors and noise and excitement! Let me try to explain...


The medallion that Mrs. Frances let me borrow for handgames
Each district on the reservation has a team- the St. X/Fort Smith area is Bighorn District, so I was on Bighorn Juniors. (Juniors are 30 and under [literally down to newborns!] and Seniors are over 30- their tournament is in two weeks.) It was so fun being invited to play with Bighorn because it's many of the families I've gotten to know and love here, including Bridgette's crew, my little buddy Terrel and his family, and most of the 5th grade girls. It's been wonderful getting to spend time with everyone and get to know even more people around the community.


So districts will play handgames for months leading up to the tournaments, sometimes inviting other districts over to play (like last Friday they invited No Water here and we played a few games.) But handgame season really got into full swing this month, with lots of practices, learning the songs, and making our outfits. It's been all about handgames!


The designs on my shawl: I didn't want to machine-sew them on, so I hand stitched them on with sequins for some extra bedazzle :)
So the game itself is simple: a hider hides an elk tooth in either hand and a guesser on the opposite team tries to guess which hand. If they guess correctly, they earn the bone back. If you trick them, your team earns a point. Each round the first team starts with 4 bones, and play switches to the next team once they've guessed and won all the bones. There are 14 points which the teams battle for and take from each other... so it can go back and forth for hours!

But actually playing handgames is more complicated (and exciting!) than it might sound. Some of the men drum, everyone else sings, and there's LOTS of cheering and rattle-shaking. The girls sit (or stand, mostly) on bleachers and make motions to try to get the bone back or to push the other team away-- it really felt like we were helping to push the "medicine" around and like the success of the team depended on the energy everyone put out. It's quite a sight; the teams will jeer at each other and make all kinds of noises to try to distract the guesser and throw him off... there's really just so much energy and noise and color going around that it's entrancing. Everyone gets REALLY into it; there's a high level of excitement on each side! So so much fun.

Bighorn celebrating a point for our side!
Our first game was supposed to be on Thursday, but the previous game went so long, til 1:30 am, that they bumped us to the first game on Friday. We played Black Lodge- a huge team- in a long and intense game, over 2 1/2 hours. Terrel was our Medicine Man (he's only in 4th grade but he is handgame king! he was awesome) We won and everyone was ecstatic! We were supposed to play the game after the next one- which lasted only 12 minutes! So it was our turn to start again.. at midnight. I was so tired but I got waves of energy and it was still a blast. But we thought the first one was long- this one was 3 hrs 14 min!! Everyone was saying they usually only play hour-long games or so. Not this year I guess! We were close to winning several times, but all of a sudden No Water took the win. We ended at 3:35 a.m... holy smokes! The kids weren't kidding when they were telling us how crazy this handgame business is! And there were kindergartners on our team... little kids all over the place! Don't know how they lasted, but I definitely saw more than a few kids sleeping on the bleachers.

Bighorn vs. Mighty Few
We came back Saturday night for our 3rd game against Mighty Few. Another long one, over 2 hours again! We hung on for a long time but couldn't beat Mighty Few. We ended around 1 am... but I didn't even notice because it felt so early compared to the night before! I was so disappointed when we lost because that meant the end of our games... but it was so much fun while it lasted and I am so appreciative that I got to be part of it. All of it was awesome- the people, the outfits, the games...

All of the beautiful beadwork lent to us... amazing!
For our outfits, we needed to make pink dresses and blue shawls. It took me all week to put it all together but it was fun to make and thankfully we had a lot of help. Everyone wears beadwork with the outfits, so the kindergarten teacher Mrs. Jefferson was so incredibly generous to let me borrow her moccasins, leggings, and belt. I was so humbled and honored to wear them and dress up. Each team has their own colors and designs so it was neat to see all the beautiful outfits!




I just had such a great weekend at handgames and am so glad I got to participate. Thankful for this and all of the many other incredible opportunities I've had in my time here!