It's a pretty physical game.
Got people
throwing blocks throwing
shoulders
and the people trying
to get past each other.
Injuries occur.
There's no pads or anything.
I was told
by one of our elders
when he was watching
us play.
We play like weaklings
compared to how
they did back then.
They played a lot rougher.
You know how people talk.
Everything was tougher
back in their day.
My name is Randall
Black Deer, I'm
a member of the Ho-Chunk
Nation.
I'm a lacrosse stick maker
and a lacrosse player.
Lacrosse is a game
that's played like
most other sports.
There's a goal on each end
and there's two teams
and they're trying to score.
It's hard to catch.
So I'm going to scoop it up.
You're going to cradle it.
You going to try
to run and score
and your teammates
are going to block for you
because you don't want to
run from one side
of the field over
to the other every time.
So you get people
that kind of
gravitate towards the posts.
Want to be defense and
people who want to score.
I'm not a woodworker.
I took
woodshop in high school
for, you know, a semester.
But, you know, all these
things are
mostly self-taught,
you know, just
different ideas.
Watching YouTube.
Progression of trial
and error.
Lacrosse sticks can be made
out of a few different
kinds of wood.
I like Hickory the best.
I typically try to find
a shag bark hickory tree
and bring them back
to the workshop.
Splitting up, debark it.
I draw my straight
line on there and feed it
through the table saw
because I want to
make boards.
Once I have it in
the board form,
I can really analyze
the grain and decide
how I want to plan
the stick out.
I have a draw knife
that I use
and I shave it down
and I shape it how I like.
The top part of the
stick is the blade,
the part that bends.
And so I need to steam that.
So I'll put it
in the steam box
for 20 minutes or
so to make it pliable,
bend it around to make it
perfectly round,
clamp it in there
and keep it there
for at least two days,
maybe a little longer.
That helps to keep its shape
because once it's
fully dried out, it's
going to stay put.
Then I'll drill my holes,
laced it up and sand it.
You know, that's
how I usually
give it out to people.
And, like, it's up to them
how they want to decorate
it or stain it or design it.
I've never seen a
lacrosse game played.
I had never seen
a real lacrosse sticks.
This game has been
on a decline for a while.
I know it was really popular
back in the early 1900s
and then it kind of
fell out of favor.
I think a lot of young guys
started to play baseball.
With our culture,
it seems like a lot of
things are on the decline
and there's a lot of efforts
by a lot of people
to revitalize the language,
revitalize the culture.
It's part of our identity
as a people.
It just so happened that
there's no other stick
makers in our tribe.
One of my grandfathers,
Wilbur Black used to be
a stick maker
back in his day.
And so I was doing
as much as I can
to keep it going
and get my son out
there to stick with me.
He knows pretty much
the whole process.
He enjoys playing the game.
It's always the young kids
that really take
an interest to it.
You know,
it's really heartening
for the future of
this game to know
that it's going to go on
for another generation.
Our job is to learn
as much as we can
and teach it
to the next generation
so we can keep it going.
I would love to teach
any of the
younger generation
that wants to learn
how to play lacrosse,
wants to learn
how to stick make.
And the same thing with,
you know,
the Ho-Chunk language with
anything that I know
I'd love to pass it
on to the next generation.
Maybe they don't
like lacrosse.
Maybe they like basket
making.
Maybe any of the
other crafts that we have
and whatever they
take a liking to,
just to pursue it
and to get good at it,
become proficient
and then teach
their peers, teach
the younger generation,
you know, that follows them
just to keep our
way of life going.