juego de cañas

English

Borrowed from Spanish juego de cañas (literally “game of canes”).

juego de cañas (uncountable)

(historical) A Spanish and Latin American game in which participants on horseback attempt to hit one another with canes.
- 1648, Thomas Gage, The English-American his Travail by Sea and Land: Or, a New Survey of the West-India’s, London: R. Cotes, page 96:
  After our breakfaſt, the Indian ſhewed us a little ſport in the Market place, running races on horſe-back, and playing at Iuego de Canna’s^[sic], which is to meet on horſeback, with broad Targets to defend their heads and ſhoulders while paſſing by they hurley Canes,or darts one at another, which thoſe Indians acted with great dexterity.
- 2012, Teofilo F. Ruiz, A King Travels: Festive Traditions in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain, Princeton University Press, page 213:
  the juego de cañas was above all an aesthetic performance featuring elaborate meaneuvers on horseback and involving little actual violence