Complementary Power Men and Women of the Lenni Lenape
carry the ball in their hands, and men could use only their feet. If a woman had the ball she could be tackled in attempts to dislodge it. Play began with an old chief throwing the ball up between the two teams in the middle of the field. Each team tried to get the ball through the other team's goalposts at opposite ends of the field. Burnet wrote that the young women "were the most active of their party, and most frequently caught the ball when it was amusing to see the struggle between them and the young men, which generally terminated in the prostration of the squaw upon the grass, before the ball could be forced from her hand." The game lasted about an hour, and the women won "by the herculean strength" of a woman who threw the ball for the deciding goal. In an article including various historical and oral accounts, scholar Jim Rementer found this game, called Pahsaheman, still being played in 1993. The continuation of this game, in spite of the vast changes the Lenni Lenape have faced over time, suggests that it reflects an important element of pre European contact Lenape society. This game, in which the women's team faces the men's and each has an equal opportunity to win by using complementary methods to move the ball (women's arms, men's legs) suggests in the Lenape past intriguing alternatives to European ideas of gender and their application.2 To explore these differences, it is necessary to look at the role gender played among the Lenni Lenape as Native Americans met Europeans. Since the ac