Oral Communication by Dr. Reg Crowshoe

"It's called the Screaming Race. Now back in the old days, ah our kids played around where we camped and in around camp you'd hear kids running around and you have kids playing and part of the games they play is the what we might call the Screaming Race. Now, when we do our games we have to understand that we're learning from these games so in the old days if a camp was attacked by another tribe, to alert the warriors or hunters that were out, the camp makes as much noise and then the men can come back and defend the camp.

So those were some of the principals for the Screaming Race. Of course today we don't attack camps anymore but the Screaming Race has become for enjoyment. In the old days, the kids used to line up on the line and then they'd have a distance that they'd run and along that distance on both sides we would have adults to listen to the kids on each side and then when the kids start running from the starting start line they start running. They allow the kids to take a couple deep breaths and then they start screaming as loud and as long as they can. So if they run fast and they can scream long and loud and as far as they can run and as soon as they finish they stop screaming and they're taking another breath of air that's where they stop and that's where they mark them from.

So we have the all kids lined up and they all start screaming and running and as they scream and run some would stop earlier because they ran out of air and others have bigger lung capacities and they would run further and the one that runs the furthest usually wins the race. So the Screaming Race was again maybe to build lung capacity but to be as loud as you can because if another camp or if another tribe attacks the camp and everybody's running to attract the warriors and hunters to come back to camp then they're going to make as much noise as they can."