noun
- A Native American ball game played with sticks and a ball, an early form of lacrosse.
Usage: historical; from Algonquian languages; also spelled baggattaway or baggataway
Examples
- Baggataway was played by Indigenous peoples across North America for centuries before European contact.
- The game of baggataway involved two teams competing to move a ball toward goal posts using wooden sticks.
- French colonists observed baggataway being played and later adapted it into the modern sport of lacrosse.
- Baggataway matches could involve hundreds of players and last for days.
- The word baggataway comes from Algonquian languages and means 'they bump hips' or 'they collide.'
- Early European accounts describe baggataway as a vigorous and sometimes violent sport.