''Batéy'' was the name given to a special
plaza
A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...
around which the
Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
Taino built their settlements. It was usually a rectangular area surrounded by stones with carved symbols (
petroglyphs
A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...
).
The ''batey'' was the area in which ''batey'' events (e.g. ceremonies, the ball game, etc.) took place. The ''batey'' ceremony (also known as ''batu'') can be viewed from some historical accounts as more of a
judicial
The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudication, adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and app ...
contest rather than a game. Because historical accounts of the game and court space come from (mostly Spanish)
European
European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to:
In general
* ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe
** Ethnic groups in Europe
** Demographics of Europe
** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...
explorers
Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians.
Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...
, the true nature,
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
, and function of the ''batey'' is still contested. Neighboring tribes may have used batey matches to resolve differences without warfare.
Distribution
Bateys are found in Turks, Caicos, St. Croix, Dominican Republic, The Bahamas, eastern Cuba, Haiti, and "the largest number of known ball courts are to be found in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands".
Batey origins
There is no consensus as to whether the ''batey'' ball game in the Caribbean was independently developed in different regions of the
New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...
or whether it diffused from one or more locations. The large centrally located cemeteries in
Saladoid
The Saladoid culture is a pre-Columbian indigenous culture of territory in present-day Venezuela and the Caribbean that flourished from 500 BCE to 545 CE. The Saladoid were an Arawak people. Concentrated along the lowlands of the Orinoco River, th ...
villages served as plazas like those seen in the lowland communities of
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
.
[Siegel, Peter. “Contested Places and Places of Contest: The Evolution of Social Power and Ceremonial Space in Prehistoric Puerto Rico”. ''Latin American Antiquity''. Vol. 10, No. 3 (Sept, 1999), pp. 209-238.]
The ceremonial and religious significance of the later-developed ball game appears to indicate a connection with the
Mesoamerican ball-game,
[Alegria, Ricardo. “The Ball Game Played by the Aborigines of the Antilles”. ''American Antiquity''. Vol. 16, No. 4 (April 1951), pp. 348-352.] and it has been argued that the ''batey'' ball-game of the
Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
is a simplified version of the Maya ''pok ta pok'', specified to the
culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
and
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
of the Taino. It is possible that the route of diffusion of the game of ''pok ta pok'' and other elements of
Mayan
Mayan most commonly refers to:
* Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America
* Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America
* Mayan languages, language family spoken ...
culture was not a direct one from the
Yucatan to the
Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
, but an indirect one by way of South America, because the
Otomacos in South America also played a similar game.
[
Ethnographer Ralph Beals reported in the early 1930s that the Acaxee tribe from western ]Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
played a ball game called "''vatey'' r''batey''" on "a small plaza, very flat, with walls at the sides".[Kelley, J. Charles. “The Known Archaeological Ballcourts of Durange and Zacatecas, Mexico” in Vernon Scarborough, David R. Wilcox (eds.), ''The Mesoamerican Ballgame''. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press. , 1991, p. 98. Kelley quotes Beals: Beals, Ralph J. ''The Acaxe, A Mountain Tribe of Durango and Sinaloa'' (Iberoamerican 6), University of California Press, Berkeley: 1933.]
The majority of the documented information about the ball game specific to the Caribbean islands comes from the historic accounts of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (August 14781557), commonly known as Oviedo, was a Spanish soldier, historian, writer, botanist and colonist. Oviedo participated in the Spanish colonization of the West Indies, arriving in the first few year ...
and Bartolomé de las Casas
Bartolomé de las Casas, OP ( ; ; 11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish landowner, friar, priest, and bishop, famed as a historian and social reformer. He arrived in Hispaniola as a layman then became a Dominican friar ...
(see picture to the right). The native name for the ball court and game was ''batey''.[Alegria, Ricardo. “Ball Courts and Ceremonial Plazas in the West Indies”. Yale University Publications in Anthropology. No. 79. Yale University Department of Anthropology: 1983.] Oviedo's description of the balls is reminiscent of rubber
Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, and ...
or some kind of resin
In polymer chemistry and materials science, resin is a solid or highly viscous substance of plant or synthetic origin that is typically convertible into polymers. Resins are usually mixtures of organic compounds. This article focuses on natu ...
with rubber-like qualities; in all sources, some kind of reference is made to the unfamiliar bounciness of the balls.[
The ]game
A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...
was played by two teams, each team consisting anywhere from ten to thirty players.[ Normally, the teams were composed of only men, but occasionally women played the game as well. Oviedo noted that sometimes men and women would play on mixed teams, men and women against each other, and the married women against unwed female virgins.][ Married women wore a shawl wrapped around their bodies while the men and virgin women went bare.][ ]Archaeologists
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
have noted a connection between the ball courts and the stone “elbow” and “neck” collars prominent in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
around the ball court sites. The function of these collars is not evident or explicitly detailed in historic accounts. Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
stone collars and the Mexican stone yokes that were worn by Mesoamerican
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Withi ...
ball game players as ceremonial belts are similar.[
''Faltas'' (errors or faults) were made when the ball came to a halt on the ground or if it had been thrown out of bounds (outside the stone boundary markers).][ The ball could only be struck from the shoulder, the elbow, the head, the hips, the buttock, or the knees and never with the hands. Las Casas noted that when women played the game they did not use their hips or shoulders, but their knees.][ Points were earned when the ball failed to be returned from a non-faulted play (similar to the earning of points in today's ]volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...
). Play continued until the number of predetermined points was earned by a side. Often, players and chiefs made bets or wagers on the possible outcome of a game. These wagers were paid after a game was concluded.[
]
Ball court petroglyphs
Petroglyphs have been found on river boulders, walls of caves and rock shelters, and on upright stone slabs outlining ball court plazas. Unfortunately, many of these artifacts have been stolen by collectors or looters.[Frassetto, Monica Flaherty. ]
A Preliminary Report on the Petroglyphs in Puerto Rico
” ''American Antiquity''. Vol. 25, No.3 (April 1960), pp. 381-391. There are two main types of petroglyphs: 1) geometric designs and 2) images representing human or animal forms (especially the “swaddled infant”). Rouse has described the petroglyphs as “human-like bodies and heads, of faces, and of geometric designs, several of which suggest the sun and the moon”.[
The most common geometric designs are concentric circles, spirals and double spirals (clockwise and counterclockwise with three to five rings), single and double hooks, two triangles set together resembling butterfly wings, horseshoe-like symbols, and series of pits loosely grouped together.][ There are also multi-rayed solar emblems, lizards, iguanas, birds, animistic heads with rays emanating from the neck, mask-like “faces,” and a variety of other heads or faces (human and animal ranging from simple circles with three pits or rings for the eyes and mouth to stylized loops resembling petals or feathers). These petroglyphs can be directly compared in design and style with the petroglyphs seen in Northwest ]Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
and Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
.[
The other most common image in the petroglyphs are grinning or grimacing, large eared, primarily zoomorphic “swaddled infants.” Although they appear to us as "swaddled infants", they actually represent ancestors who were wrapped in hammocks upon death. The images have limbless, rounded bodies that are sack-like at the bottom. Their ears are often exaggeratedly large and are presented in varying positions and shapes.][
In Puerto Rico, the “infant” type and the geometric/curvilinear type tend to occupy separate village sites. Current archaeological data is inconclusive as to whether the designs were from two different time periods (the spiral groups are mostly in the mountainous interior where the infant type is much rarer) or if the designs represent a difference in ]religious symbolism
A religious symbol is an iconic representation intended to represent a specific religion, or a specific concept within a given religion.
Religious symbols have been used in the military in many countries, such as the United States military chapl ...
.[
]
See also
* Callejones Site
References
{{reflist
External links
Taino World - Ball Game
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070517053906/http://www.icp.gobierno.pr/ Cultural Institute of Puerto Rico
Puerto Rican culture
Sports in Puerto Rico
Archaeological features
Indigenous topics of the Caribbean
Sport in the Caribbean
History of the Caribbean