By the time Europeans began arriving in North America during the late sixteenth century, Native Americans already had a long tradition of individual contests and team sports. Both men and women engaged in competitive recreation, especially various kinds of ball games. Southwestern native peoples played a form of basketball, and northern tribes competed in a version of modern-day lacrosse. (In lacrosse, players use a long-handled stick with a triangular mesh pouch attached at one end for catching, carrying, and throwing a ball into a goal.) A type of football, which involved kicking a leather ball against a post or posts, seems to have been popular among Eastern Woodlands tribes (native inhabitants of the region stretching from New England to Virginia). In Virginia it was played by women and young boys. European observers were all impressed with how civil the game was, how fairly the...