One of the first gifts any member of the Onondaga nation receives is called a “crib stick” — a small lacrosse stick given to babies that symbolizes the importance of that sport to people who invented it.
Nearly 1,000 years after lacrosse was first played on fields that could sometimes stretch for miles across the Haudenosaunee confederacy, the sport will be on the Olympic schedule in Los Angeles in 2028. Whether the Haudenosaunee, a collection of six Native American nations whose territory covers upstate New York and adjacent sections of Canada, will have a spot in that tournament is a question that will keep the lacrosse world on edge between now and then.
