In Etah in 1855

Pre-pro Baseball

Etah, Greenland Firsts, Games, Clubs, Fields, Predecessor Games Greenland Firsts, Games, Clubs, Fields, Predecessor Games

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Date of Game	1855
Game
Location	Etah, Greenland
Modern Address
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Has Source On Hand	No
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NY Rules	No - Predecessor
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Description	While American whalers brought baseball to Arctic waters, the Inuit had already developed their own bat-and-ball games. The Inuit of Etah (also spelled Iita), the northernmost settlement in Greenland, played a particularly distinctive version. Dr. Elisha Kent Kane provided two of the earliest documented observations of these indigenous games as part of the Second Grinnell Expedition of 1853-1855, in search of the lost ships of Sir John Franklin. In 1855, toward the end of the expedition, Kane first noted the presence of bat-and-ball games during his observations of walrus hunting. After describing the community’s intense focus on processing the valuable walrus catch, he observed children at play: “the children, each one armed with the curved rib of some big amphibion [sic], are playing ball and bat among the drifts.” A more detailed account came later in Kane’s account of the expedition. Before departing Etah, Kane wrote of being led by a young guide named Sip-su to what he called a “play-ground” where children gathered. “Each of them had a walrus-rib for a golph or shinny-stick,” Kane wrote, “and they were contending to drive a hurley, made out of the round knob of a flipper-joint, up a bank of frozen snow.” Kane noted the children's reactions—“Roars of laughter greeted the impatient striker as he missed his blow at the shining ball”—and observed that the players were “counting on the fingers of both hands, Eight, eight, eight: the game is ten,” indicating a scoring system.
Sources	Elisha Kent Kane, Arctic Explorations in the Years 1853, ’54, ’55, Vol 2 (Philadelphia, PA: Childs and Peterson, 1856), 132, 206–207.
Source Image	File:Arctic Explorations in the Years 1853, 54, 55, Vol 2.pdf
Has Source On Hand	No
Comment	This sounds like a shinty-type bat-ball game. [ba] Edit with form to add a comment
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Submitted by	Steve Rennie
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First in Location
Players Locality	Local
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