Wisconsin Life

>> And what we're going to do is we're gonna race all the way around the cones. But get the snow shoes on, walk around a little bit. Get the feel of 'em before we race, you guys, okay? >> I got it, boy! I got it. >> When you're a kid, play can be serious business. >> Ahh! >> And on this winter day, on a frozen lake in the Lac du Flambeau Indian reservation, Dallas Hart and his buddies are hard at work. >> I'm glad to do our traditional sports. >> They're here for the Ojibwe Winter Games. It's a competition with traditional Native-American tasks that date back centuries. >> The snowshoe race-- >> Get set! Go! >> It's like a regular race track. >> Go, go! >> You head out into the snow, but once you run into the back, you race along the edges and whoever comes in first has first place, second and third. >> Third. Good job, guys. >> Next is the spear throwing game. >> Ooh, good job. That's two. >> We make kind of like a bigger dream catcher and hang it off a tripod. >> Oh, there you go. That's two. >>

Kids

Wow! >> We've got a new first place! >> That one's the addle-addle. It's a piece of wood that's about an inch-and-a-half thick. And there's a horn that comes off, a deer horn, and you put the deer horn inside the small hole and you hold it with your two fingers. >> It's easier to put your hand out and step forward, and release it. But you don't release the handle. >> Good throw, Dallas. >> In generations past, games like these meant for more than fun. >> We call them games now, but they were their survival and that's what I appreciate though, is that they didn't give up when they had to go out and hunt for days with these tools. >> Take the story behind the addle-addle. >> When you'd use it to hunt, you try to throw it straighter at the target.

cheering

Kids

What that was meant for was the spear, you're using your arm power, but with the addle-addle, you'd be using the force from the addle addle, your arm power and the force from flinging it. >> Oh! >> As times changed, many of these games were forgotten. Only recently have teachers in Dallas's community brought them back. >> Snow snake, he said, hasn't been played in 170 years. What we did is we'd go out on the lake, we'd make a groove all the way across the lake if it was a mile, and we'd take a long piece of wood, we'd carve it to where it's a pole but with a snake head. So you'd put your finger in that notch and the lower you go, the better it'll be. And when you fling it it'll slide right across the ice. >> But they aren't just learning how to hold onto a spear, they're also learning to hold onto their culture. >> Osa Wabic, our elder, Joe Chosa, he's the oldest tribal member, he's 97 now. He told me, he said, years ago, when I was little, he said, you know, the only thing the Native people didn't use when they killed a deer, when they took a deer? Do you know what it was? Its holler, when it was shot. >> Dallas says knowing the roots of these games makes them more than child's play. >> The feeling that I get when I play these games, it's a really good feeling knowing that it's me playing traditional games, what they used to do. Knowing that, it's kind of-- kind of almost-- It's hard to describe. It's like a really good feeling.