Variations of Stickball

Most Native American groups in the geographical region which is currently the southeastern U.S. have played a version of Toli at some point in their history. Many continue to play on a more or less limited basis to this day. Below are the rules for some of the variations of Toli that were, or are, common to the region. If I have played a particular version, in addition to listing the rules, I will describe how a typical point is played. This list will eventually include all known variations.

Cherokee stickball differs from the Choctaw game in several fundamental, and important, ways. Specifically, in Cherokee stickball:
• You can tackle anyone at any time.
• Only one stick is used.
• After you pick up the ball with your stick you can put it (the ball) in your hand.
• To score you have to run through the goal (two stakes set into the ground about 2 meters apart) then back onto the field.

 Most Cherokee teams utilize a "man-to-man" style of play. Each player is assigned to guard a specific member of the opposing team, and since you may tackle anyone at anytime, "guarding" means tackling. A typical point goes like this: The ball is tossed up. Everyone tackles an opposing player. Players wrestle around until someone breaks free and gets the ball. The person with the ball runs for the goal (and his or her life!) while the opposing team attempts to break free of your teammates and stop you before you score. If you manage to make it through the goal, LOOK OUT! To score you need to make it back onto the field! And with the full force of the opposing team coming at you, this is a good trick indeed!

 There are currently no active Cherokee teams and the game is played only once each year during an annual festival.

The Creek play a version of stickball that serves to demonstrate that not all Native American sports rely on violence for fun. Creek games are played around a single 5-10 meter pole which is topped with a brightly painted animal skull and whose top 60 cm are delimited by a bright blue ring of paint. To score you must hit the pole above the blue ring, or better yet, hit the skull atop the pole. Games are played to four points.

 To add to the social nature of the game a softer ball is used and games are not played between communities, but between men and women of the same community. The men use sticks that differ only in their lacing pattern from Choctaw-style sticks while the women use no sticks at all. Since the women don't have sticks they can pick up, catch and throw the ball with their hands and are unencumbered by sticks while running after the ball. These are serious advantages as is the rule against tackling the women during play.

 A typical point in Creek rules goes something like this: The ball is tossed up and when it reaches the top of its arc everyone shouts. When it comes down everyone scrambles for it. If a man comes out with it a woman is there to pry his sticks apart causing him to drop it, or she knocks him to the ground, knowing there will be no retaliation. If a woman gets it she jumps free of the struggling mass and fakes a hand-off to another team member or she can hide the ball on her person (there is a lot of this sort of thing going on while the women have the ball). When the ball carrier is free, female or male, they throw it at the top of the pole hoping to score.