February 23, 1916 - Indians invented a game like football

        Indians Invented and Played Football for Enormous Stakes Over Courses a mile long

    Although a form of football was played by both the Greeks and Romans under the title of  Feninda, and later Spheromakin, it has been recently demonstrated that the North American Indians invented and played a game similar to the football of early and middle age Europe. In a recent article upon the subject, Parke Davis, the statistician and historian of the modern games, writes as follows: 

    "The first American played football in a well specialized game of which he also was the inventor. Like Lacrosse, the Indian played his game of football upon the flat sands. The ball was made of leather; sewn with a tong and filled with moss. The goals were a mile and more apart. The players ordinarily were braves of the same tribe, but upon special occasions the game would be waged between selected players of different tribes, one tribe arrayed against another. 

    "In these tribal contests the players came to the sands arrayed in war bonnets, war paint, and full savage regalia. As the time drew near for the game to begin, bows, quivers, shields and bonnets were discarded, and the Indian, little and athletic, stood forth eager and alert. Before commencing play the rival players shook hands and rubbed noses in formal token of the friendliness of the fierce encounter.

    "Our general reporters of three centuries ago tell us that sometimes several days are required to obtain a goal, in which event the contending teams would mark the sport where the ball lay at sundown and resume the game at that point the following day. And there was fair sportsmanship in their game, for William Starchoy, comparing the tactics of the Indians to the tactics of the Englishmen, and clearly referring to tripping and masking, says: 'They never strike up one another's heels, as we do, not accounting it praiseworthy to purchase a goal by such an advantage.' They played for stakes, did these Indians, so high that William Wood is afraid to tell the size. On the subject he says: "It would exceed the belief of many to relate the worth of one goal, wherefore it shall be nameless." 

Source: New Castle News. February 23, 1916