The Origins of Rugby researched further by Pacific Sport Historians: A Forgotten History

Northern Native Americans seen playing their

Multi-Regional games which included over a hundred participants

The game of Rugby has in the past 180 years far out grown the few catholic teams who used to compete against each other in schoolyard grounds, becoming even more internationally beloved within the last 40 years of Asia Pacific Pacific Islander participation. The Asia Pacific nations, including Australia and Japan have become Rugby centers who compete aggressively with their Samoan, Tongan, Fijian, and Maori neighbors. Aotearoa New Zealand's All Blacks team has been the top international team in Rugby for over 30 years, with no end in sight, growing super crops of island players who Haka a pre-game welcome. In 1884, the first Aotearoa New Zealand Rugby team toured Australia winning all 9 matches.

With the "game play" of Rugby attracting fans who yell for their teams the "History play" has attracted sport historians, and although there is a belief the game originated in Western Europe, it has been well knocked that the game comes from North American regions.

It seems impossible really, the game of International Rugby coming from the Northern Americas when the national sport is American-rules Football, but we didn't say it came from the wagon loading Pioneers, Traders, or the Colonial American people, but Rugby does have a large percentage of it's origins from the Americas, a much greater percentage than from Britain or France. Historical studies have found that Native American clans played various sports from far reaching regions with the clans having some relations with one another, some with intermarriage, reaching from the US. Eastern regions to Canada. In fact, just about every popular national sport in the western-sphere comes from a fair selection of Native American invented games even basketball, which is a variation from a Native Meso-American game (South American Natives), kicking a ball on a stone paved court about 50-100 yards long into a decorated hoop who's popular name is called 'Aztec Ball' or 'Mayan Ball'. The modern game of Soccer is another extension or variation of the same Native Meso-American court game replacing the hoop goals with easier to target ground netted goals.

The beloved game of Rugby has it's origins from Native American games such as "Lacrosse" (A French Catholic name for the Native American game). The Northern Native American Lacrosse game created the famous Stand-off in modern sports. The stand-off is a starting point, a face-off between two or more people who push or combat for the ball to start the game or restart the game. The Lacrosse stand-off in Rugby is called the Scrum, a unique feature of the sport that evolved from one-on-one play to team scrumming.

Meso-American goal Chichen Itza

photo by Karyre Thor Olsen

The Meso-American stone courts still stand today and 

are extremely similar to modern indoor sporting courts. 

What all these games have in common with each other is "Catholic History". The Spanish Catholics connected to early Meso-America. The Spanish landed in the Americas in the year 1492. French Catholics connected to North America and Canada, who then connected with the Scottish-English. The game came with Euro-missionary Jesuit scholars back to European homelands around the 1600's, who relayed new world experiences. From there, the Catholics played in private schools. Britain became a unified Scottish-English nation in 1706 to fight off the royalist Catholic influences, however education remained in Great Britain from the New American frontier. The British Union Jack flag was sworn around 1801.

In the 1840's, Catholic founded Oxford University sport trends began circulating. It was around 1845 to early 1860's that the Americans heard of a sport called Rugby, which they thought was similar to Football, and had no clue, it too, was a game originating from the New World Americas.

"It wasn't just sports that came from the Native Americas, so many food trades came from the Americas even the potato that is now spread across Europe came from the Native Andes' of South America. The traditional English Breakfast today (which is not from England) is a Catholic meal of overseas trades consisting of eggs from a Southeast Asian chicken breed brought by the Catholics, baked beans are from South America, tomatoes are from South America, and the Italian-German Catholic sausage is an imported product. The modern British pig is not indigenous to the British isles (most native British pigs are endangered or extinct). There is other research into more British imports of foreign domesticated animals such as Dog breeds from Rome, brought by Captain William John Gill 1800s"

The English Catholic Breakfast

The traditional Native Americans still play without pads in Lacrosse and have a slimmer goal to score points. The physical side of the old game though may never return to it's former glory unless a newly athletic Native generation picks-up where the Ancestors left off. Canada's favorite game of Ice Hockey is an extended game from Native America, first played as Field Hockey in the grass then later played on ice courts. The Field Hockey version can be seen in the Blockbuster hit movie "The Last of the Mohicans".

Catholic Oxford University Rugby

On a website called rugbyhistory.com the origins of Rugby is credited to a single man, a William Webb Ellis, a man who went to Catholic Oxford University. The sports history though doesn't hold up, extremely simple, claiming he ran with a ball, and Rugby was magically born. The Rugby rules of England also started with an unlimited number, a familiar Native American rule of the game. 

In 1839, Arthur Pell claims to have made the "Cambridge Rules Rugby", simply another renaming of the game already in place with some added flair. Australia too has other several variants of the sport played in the AFL, founded first as the VFL or Victorian Football League.

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