Baggattaway

Baggattaway Review

Once, before the sunrise, they had a game. Until they were removed to the sidelines for a long, silent age in which their last numbers are inert as upright fossils. How the blood of these fossils would be stirred up if even a single inning of baggattaway (lacrosse) could be played again. Chippewa sons Birch Charlevoix and Neil Longbow LaSalle intend to stir up that Native blood. Drawing the rancor of Indian haters and the lacrosse establishment, they fight to honor their game, to institute Indian rules for the Lacrosse World Cup of 2010. They recruit Native peoples from tribal lands in Oklahoma and South Dakota as spectators. A vast interstate caravan of buses, a trail of tears in reverse, chugs innocently toward the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for the tournament. Birch and Neil's personal lives are not spared. Age-old secrets come to the light of day, including one studiously shrouded by Neil about Birch's wife Marla. Is Birch's dream of Indigene remembrance even a possibility?