Games provide teaching about culture and community

TOWER — Area students learned some new games, stories, and Indigenous culture this past week when retired phy ed teacher Dan Ninham visited area schools, spreading his knowledge of Indigenous games from Minnesota and around the country.
Ninham was always an athlete, but this member of the Oneida Tribe, from Wisconsin, found his calling when he began teaching Indigenous games to children across the country. He graduated high school in 1977, growing up near Green Bay, Wis.
“I was recruited to play basketball at Eastern Wyoming College and then moved through a series of college basketball programs before ending up at Bemidji State,” where he met his wife Susan.
The couple has now been married for 43 years, and they live in Red Lake, his wife’s hometown. The couple are both educators. They were both awarded Bush Fellowships in 2000. Dan went on to earn a PhD in 2009, and Susan got her Education Administrators license as well as an advanced degree in special education. Dan is also a journalist, covering sports for NDNsports.com.
Throughout his career as a middle school physical education teacher, mostly in Bemidji, Ninham understood the importance of getting kids moving. But his interest in Indigenous games came a little later, after attending the Milwaukee Indian Summerfest and seeing a demonstration of Inuit games.
“I retired and then un-retired four years ago,” he said.
Now, he is traveling the country, reaching several hundred thousand school children a year and introducing Indigenous games from his tribal culture around the country.
Ninham was in Tower, Ely, Cook, and many surrounding communities last week teaching Indigenous games workshops for both elementary and high school students. The local programs were funded by Bois Forte.
“We are thankful and grateful that they support us,” he said. “They are helping us share the message of physical movement in an Indigenous way.”
Cultural forms of movement are not just Ojibwe, he said, and the games he teaches are from a variety of tribal cultures. He also adds in Ojibwe language and culture to the games.
While lacrosse might be the most famous Indigenous game, there are many other games, using sticks, balls, and ropes, as well as running games that Ninham introduces to students.
In Bemidji, he used Indigenous games as part of his curriculum, but he also created a free online archive of professional development lessons for teachers, who also wish to add these games to their teaching.
“We have 45 YouTube videos online,” he said. “Teachers can earn continuing education credits.”
His goal is to keep Indigenous games moving into the future.
“Our motto is the Indigenous games movement continues,” he said.
Ninham talked about times when these games were banned, along with Native languages and other cultural practices.
“I was a freshman in college when the government said I could be Indigenous again,” he said.

Putting teaching into practice
The area students he worked with got to enjoy mild fall weather while learning new games, along with some Ojibwe language, and hearing how some of these games originated. Many of these games taught skills that were important to these communities, and the skills learned translated into more successful hunters, among other things.
Students are becoming a part of history by playing these games, Ninham said.
“A lot of these games are continuing on,” he said. “This is not in the past tense.”
Students from Vermilion Country School got the chance to learn some lacrosse ball handling techniques, then put them to use in a spirited tag-like game. In the afternoon, Ninham worked with students from Tower-Soudan Elementary.
He also taught in Ely, North Woods, Northeast Range, and several other Iron Range schools. He was joined on some days by Bernard Clark, an exceptionally talented young Native athlete from Alaska, who was recently inducted into the North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame. He holds world records in some of his events.
Ninham and his wife helped start this hall of fame (NAIAHF.ORG), which honors not only athletes, but also coaches, officials, and sports journalists at a banquet held once a year.
The Ojibwe double-ball game has many variations, and students learned to toss and catch the balls. They also played a spirited game where they worked to land their balls on top of the old football goal post. Originally, he told the students, the game was played with a series of large tripods, with a stick across the top to form the goals. The double-ball game is very significant to Ojibwe culture, he said.
While the double balls were traditionally made from leather stuffed with sand or buffalo hair, Ninham showed how to make a more modern (and less expensive) version with tennis balls stuffed and knotted into the ends of a long sport sock.

A lacrosse legend
Ninham was recently selected to the newly established Minnesota Lacrosse Hall of Fame Foundation as one of 12 Hall of Fame inductees for the first-ever class.
“These distinguished individuals — comprising players, coaches, officials, and administrators — exemplify excellence and leadership in Minnesota’s lacrosse community,” stated in a news release announcing the inaugural class. 
Ninham is the only Indigenous citizen of the group. He said it feels good to be honored as an inductee and shares in the recognition.
“Even though I was recognized, I think there’s so many other people involved with it as well. All the way from the young kids that were playing the game of lacrosse, the wooden stick game, the traditional game, as well as the modern stick game,” Ninham said. “I often reference we, and there’s a number of people involved that I believe are the part of me representing them. And it’s pretty deep. I think of even the ones who have come before us, and the ones that have been playing this game and that we’re all a part of this, it’s nice to have that recognition.”