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Hand Game - You Don't Want to Miss
It
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 For years, missionaries and the following tidal
wave of white settlers attempted to prevent Native Tribes of the
Northwest from playing their "hand game." The game, also called
"stick game" or "bone game," is a game of chance played for
generations by many Tribes.
In his film Hand Game: The Native North
American Game of Power and Chance, filmmaker Lawrence Johnson
documents the game on a number of Indian Reservations across the
Northwest--both as it is played currently and as the mythic and
historic roots of contemporary gambling in Indian Country. By
foregoing traditional narration and allowing the colorful, engaging
players of the game to share their stories instead, viewers
experience how hand game is woven into the larger cultural
tapestry. It is a tapestry that binds not only a Tribe's people
together, but Tribes to one another to create a greater sense of
Indian identity.
In an alternate world, where Native traditions were shared more
easily in the dominant culture, one could easily imagine hand game
being broadcast on ESPN, similar to the World Series of Poker Tour.
Players wearing blank expressions and sunglasses indoors would be
replaced with the great energy of Native music, song and dance; the
bright and busy backdrops of casinos would be replaced with the
beauty and life of a different Indian Reservation for each
match.
However, that remains a fantasy--for now. But that only makes hand
game all the more relevant. For generations, hand game served to
bring people together in peace while reminding them of the lesson
implicit in the game--while you are sometimes granted temporary
mastery over the game, like life, hand game remains mostly
chance.
Hand game continues to instruct and bind, but now it provides
something extra--it provides a way for Indians to shrug off the
forces of assimilation, preserve their culture and ways of
thinking, and re-assert their "Indianness." And this makes hand
game all the richer.
Save 20% on Hand Game, this month
only!
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