![Pok ta pok ballgame maya indians mexico 3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Pok_ta_pok_ballgame_maya_indians_mexico_3.JPG)
The Mesoamerican ballgame ( nah, ōllamalīztli, , myn, pitz) was a
sport
Sport pertains to any form of Competition, competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and Skill, skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to specta ...
with ritual associations played since at least 1650 BC by the
pre-Columbian
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...
people of
Ancient Mesoamerica
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...
. The sport had different versions in different places during the millennia, and a newer, more modern version of the game, ''
ulama
In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious ...
'', is still played by the
indigenous populations in some places.
[Fox, John (2012)]
''The ball: discovering the object of the game"''
1st ed., New York: Harper. . Cf. Chapter 4: "Sudden Death in the New World" about the Ulama game.
The rules of the Mesoamerican ballgame are not known, but judging from its descendant,
ulama
In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious ...
, they were probably similar to
racquetball
Racquetball is a racquet sport and a team sport played with a hollow rubber ball on an indoor or outdoor court. Joseph Sobek invented the modern sport of racquetball in 1950, adding a stringed racquet to paddleball in order to increase velo ...
,
where the aim is to keep the ball in play. The stone ballcourt goals are a late addition to the game.
In the most common theory of the game, the players struck the ball with their hips, although some versions allowed the use of forearms, rackets, bats, or handstones. The ball was made of solid
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 ...
and weighed as much as 4 kg (9 lbs), and sizes differed greatly over time or according to the version played.
The Mesoamerican ballgame had important
ritual
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...
aspects, and major formal ballgames were held as ritual events. Late in the history of the game, some cultures occasionally seem to have combined competitions with religious
human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein ...
. The sport was also played casually for recreation by children and may have been played by women as well.
Pre-Columbian
ballcourts
A Mesoamerican ballcourt ( nah, tlachtli) is a large masonry structure of a type used in Mesoamerica for over 2,700 years to play the Mesoamerican ballgame, particularly the hip-ball version of the ballgame. More than 1,300 ballcourts have been i ...
have been found throughout Mesoamerica, as for example at
Copán
Copán is an archaeological site of the Maya civilization in the Copán Department of western Honduras, not far from the border with Guatemala. This ancient Maya city mirrors the beauty of the physical landscape in which it flourished—a fert ...
, as far south as modern
Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...
, and possibly as far north as what is now the U.S. state of
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
. These ballcourts vary considerably in size, but all have long narrow alleys with slanted side-walls against which the balls could bounce in.
Names
The Mesoamerican ballgame is known by a wide variety of names. In English, it is often called ''pok-ta-pok'' (or ''pok-a-tok''). This term originates from a 1932 article by Danish archaeologist
Frans Blom
Frans Blom (9 August 1893 – 23 June 1963) was a Danish explorer and archaeologist. He was most associated with his research of the Maya civilization of Mexico and Central America.
Biography
Frans Ferdinand Blom was born in Copenhagen, ...
, who adapted it from the
Yucatec Maya
Yucatec Maya (; referred to by its speakers simply as Maya or as , is one of the 32 Mayan languages of the Mayan language family. Yucatec Maya is spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula and northern Belize. There is also a significant diasporic commu ...
word .
In
Nahuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...
, the language of the Aztecs, it was called () or (). In
Classical Maya, it was known as . In modern
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
, it is called ('Maya ballgame'),
('Mesoamerican ballgame'), or simply ('Maya ball').
Origins
It is not known precisely when or where the Mesoamerican ballgame originated, although it is likely that it originated earlier than 2000 BC in the low-lying tropical zones home to the
rubber tree
''Hevea brasiliensis'', the Pará rubber tree, ''sharinga'' tree, seringueira, or most commonly, rubber tree or rubber plant, is a flowering plant belonging to the spurge family Euphorbiaceae originally native to the Amazon basin, but is now pa ...
.
One candidate for the birthplace of the ballgame is the
Soconusco
Soconusco is a region in the southwest corner of the state of Chiapas in Mexico along its border with Guatemala. It is a narrow strip of land wedged between the Sierra Madre de Chiapas mountains and the Pacific Ocean. It is the southernmost par ...
coastal lowlands along the Pacific Ocean. Here, at
Paso de la Amada Paso de la Amada (from Spanish: "beloved's pass") is an archaeological site in the Mexican state of Chiapas on the Gulf of Tehuantepec, in the Mazatán part of Soconusco region of Mesoamerica. It is located in farmland between the modern town oB ...
, archaeologists have found the oldest ballcourt yet discovered, dated to approximately 1400 BC.
![Chichén_Itzá_-_Juego_de_Pelota](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Chich%C3%A9n_Itz%C3%A1_-_Juego_de_Pelota.jpg)
The other major candidate is the
Olmec heartland
The Olmec heartland is the southern portion of Mexico's Gulf Coast region between the Tuxtla mountains and the Olmec archaeological site of La Venta, extending roughly 80 km (50 mi) inland from the Gulf of Mexico coastline at its deepest. It i ...
, across the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec
The Isthmus of Tehuantepec () is an isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, it was a major overland transport route known simply as the Te ...
along the
Gulf Coast
The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Mississ ...
. The
Aztecs
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...
referred to their
Postclassic
In Human history, world history, post-classical history refers to the period from about 500 AD to 1500, roughly corresponding to the European Middle Ages. The period is characterized by the expansion of civilizations geographically and develop ...
contemporaries who then inhabited the region as the ''Olmeca'' (i.e. "rubber people") since the region was strongly identified with
latex
Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well.
In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...
production. The earliest-known rubber balls in the world come from the sacrificial bog at
El Manatí
El Manatí is an archaeological site located approximately 60 km south of Coatzacoalcos, in the municipality of Hidalgotitlán 27 kilometers southeast of Minatitlán in the Mexican state of Veracruz. El Manatí was the site of a sacred Olm ...
, an early Olmec-associated site located in the hinterland of the
Coatzacoalcos River
The Coatzacoalcos is a large river that feeds mainly the south part of the state of Veracruz; it originates in the Sierra de Niltepec and crosses the state of Oaxaca in the region of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, flowing for toward the Gulf of M ...
drainage system. Villagers, and subsequently archaeologists, have recovered a dozen balls ranging in diameter from 10 to 22 cm from the freshwater spring there. Five of these balls have been dated to the earliest-known occupational phase for the site, approximately 1700–1600 BC. These rubber balls were found with other ritual offerings buried at the site, indicating that even at this early date the game had religious and ritual connotations. A stone "yoke" of the type frequently associated with Mesoamerican ballcourts was also reported to have been found by local villagers at the site, leaving open the distinct possibility that these rubber balls were related to the ritual ballgame, and not simply an independent form of sacrificial
offering.
![La_Corona_Relieve_Juego_de_Pelota](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/La_Corona_Relieve_Juego_de_Pelota.jpg)
Excavations at the nearby Olmec site of
San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán
San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán or San Lorenzo is the collective name for three related archaeological sites—San Lorenzo, Tenochtitlán and Potrero Nuevo—located in the southeast portion of the Mexican state of Veracruz. Along with La Venta and T ...
have also uncovered a number of ballplayer figurines,
radiocarbon-dated as far back as 1250–1150 BC. A rudimentary ballcourt, dated to a later occupation at San Lorenzo, 600–400 BC, has also been identified.
From the tropical lowlands, the game apparently moved into central Mexico. Starting around 1000 BC or earlier, ballplayer figurines were interred with burials at
Tlatilco
Tlatilco was a large pre-Columbian village in the Valley of Mexico situated near the modern-day town of the same name in the Mexican Federal District. It was one of the first chiefdom centers to arise in the Valley, flourishing on the western sho ...
and similarly styled figurines from the same period have been found at the nearby
Tlapacoya site.
[ It was about this period, as well, that the so-called ]Xochipala
Xochipala is a minor archaeological site in the Mexican state of Guerrero, whose name has become attached, somewhat erroneously, to a style of Formative Period figurines and pottery from 1500 to 200 BCE. The archaeological site belongs to the Cl ...
-style ballplayer figurines were crafted in Guerrero
Guerrero is one of the 32 states that comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 81 municipalities and its capital city is Chilpancingo and its largest city is Acapulcocopied from article, GuerreroAs of 2020, Guerrero the pop ...
. Although no ballcourts of similar age have been found in Tlatilco or Tlapacoya, it is possible that the ballgame was indeed played in these areas, but on courts with perishable boundaries or temporary court markers.[
By 300 BC, evidence for the game appears throughout much of the Mesoamerican archaeological record, including ballcourts in the Central Chiapas Valley (the next oldest ballcourts discovered, after Paso de la Amada), and in the ]Oaxaca Valley
The Central Valleys ( es, Valles Centrales) of Oaxaca, also simply known as the Oaxaca Valley, is a geographic region located within the modern-day state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. In an administrative context, it has been defined as comprising ...
, as well as ceramic ballgame tableaus from Western Mexico (see photo below).
Material and formal aspects
As might be expected with a game played over such a long period of time by many cultures, details varied over time and place, so the Mesoamerican ballgame might be more accurately seen as a family of related games.
In general, the hip-ball version is most popularly thought of as ''the'' Mesoamerican ballgame,[ and researchers believe that this version was the primary—or perhaps only—version played within the ]masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by mortar; the term ''masonry'' can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are bricks, building ...
ballcourt
A Mesoamerican ballcourt ( nah, tlachtli) is a large masonry structure of a type used in Mesoamerica for over 2,700 years to play the Mesoamerican ballgame, particularly the hip-ball version of the ballgame. More than 1,300 ballcourts have been i ...
. Ample archaeological evidence exists for games where the ball was struck by a wooden stick (e.g., a mural at Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'') (; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is ...
shows a game which resembles field hockey
Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ci ...
), racquets, bats
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bi ...
and batons, handstones, and the forearm, perhaps at times in combination. Each of the various types of games had its own size of ball, specialized gear and playing field, and rules.
Games were played between two teams of players. The number of players per team could vary, between two to four. Some games were played on makeshift courts for simple recreation while others were formal spectacles on huge stone ballcourts leading to human sacrifice.
Even without human sacrifice, the game could be brutal and there were often serious injuries inflicted by the solid, heavy ball. Today's hip-''ulama
In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious ...
'' players are "perpetually bruised" while nearly 500 years ago Spanish chronicler Diego Durán
Diego Durán (c. 1537 – 1588) was a Dominican friar best known for his authorship of one of the earliest Western books on the history and culture of the Aztecs, ''The History of the Indies of New Spain'', a book that was much criticised in hi ...
reported that some bruises were so severe that they had to be lanced open. He also reported that players were even killed when the ball "hit them in the mouth or the stomach or the intestines".[
The rules of the Mesoamerican ballgame, regardless of the version, are not known in any detail. In modern-day '']ulama
In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious ...
'', the game resembles a netless 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 ...
,[ with each team confined to one half of the court. In the most widespread version of ''ulama'', the ball is hit back and forth using only the hips until one team fails to return it or the ball leaves the court.
In the ]Postclassic
In Human history, world history, post-classical history refers to the period from about 500 AD to 1500, roughly corresponding to the European Middle Ages. The period is characterized by the expansion of civilizations geographically and develop ...
period, the Maya began placing vertical stone rings on each side of the court, the object being to pass the ball through one, an innovation that continued into the later Toltec
The Toltec culture () was a Pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula (Mesoamerican site), Tula, Hidalgo (state), Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoam ...
and Aztec
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...
cultures.
In the 16th-century Aztec ballgame that the Spaniards witnessed, points were lost by a player who let the ball bounce more than twice before returning it to the other team, who let the ball go outside the boundaries of the court, or who tried and failed to pass the ball through one of the stone rings placed on each wall along the center line. According to 16th-century Aztec chronicler Motolinia
Toribio of Benavente, O.F.M. (1482, Benavente, Spain – 1565, Mexico City, New Spain), also known as Motolinía, was a Franciscan missionary who was one of the famous Twelve Apostles of Mexico who arrived in New Spain in May 1524. His publishe ...
, points were gained if the ball hit the opposite end wall, while the decisive victory was reserved for the team that put the ball through a ring. However, placing the ball through the ring was a rare event—the rings at Chichen Itza, for example, were set off the playing field—and most games were likely won on points.[
]
Clothing and gear
The game's paraphernalia—clothing, headdresses, gloves, all but the stone—are long gone, so knowledge on clothing relies on art—paintings and drawings, stone reliefs, and figurines—to provide evidence for pre-Columbian ballplayer clothing and gear, which varied considerably in type and quantity. Capes and masks, for example, are shown on several Dainzú
Dainzú is a Zapotec archaeological site located in the eastern side of the Valles Centrales de Oaxaca, about 20 km south-east of the city of Oaxaca, Oaxaca State, Mexico. It is an ancient village near to and contemporary with Monte Albá ...
relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
s, while Teotihuacan murals show men playing stick-ball in skirts.
The basic hip-game outfit consisted of a loincloth
A loincloth is a one-piece garment, either wrapped around itself or kept in place by a belt. It covers the genitals and, at least partially, the buttocks. Loincloths which are held up by belts or strings are specifically known as breechcloth or ...
, sometimes augmented with leather hip guards. Loincloths are found on the earliest ballplayer figurines from Tlatilco, Tlapacoya, and the Olmec culture, are seen in the Weiditz drawing from 1528 (below), and, with hip guards, are the sole outfit of modern-day ''ulama
In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious ...
'' players (above)—a span of nearly 3,000 years.
In many cultures, further protection was provided by a thick girdle
A belt, especially if a cord or rope, is called a girdle if it is worn as part of Christian liturgical vestments, or in certain historical, literary or sports contexts.
Girdles are used to close a cassock in Christian denominations, including th ...
, most likely of wicker or wood covered in fabric or leather. Made of perishable materials, none of these girdles have survived, although many stone "yokes" have been uncovered. Misnamed by earlier archaeologists due to its resemblance to an animal yoke, the stone yoke is thought to be too heavy for actual play and was likely used only before or after the game in ritual contexts. In addition to providing some protection from the ball, the girdle or yoke would also have helped propel the ball with more force than the hip alone. Additionally, some players wore chest protectors called ''palmas'' which were inserted into the yoke and stood upright in front of the chest.
Kneepads are seen on a variety of players from many areas and eras and are worn by forearm-''ulama'' players today. A type of garter
A garter is an article of clothing comprising a narrow band of fabric fastened about the leg to keep up stockings. In the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, they were tied just below the knee, where the leg is most slender, to keep the stocking ...
is also often seen, worn just below the knee or around the ankle—it is not known what function this served. Gloves appear on the purported ballplayer relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
s of Dainzú, roughly 500 BC, as well as the Aztec players are drawn by Weiditz 2,000 years later (see drawing below). Helmets (likely utilitarian) and elaborate headdresses (likely used only in ritual contexts) are also common in ballplayer depictions, headdresses being particularly prevalent on Maya painted vases or on Jaina Island
Jaina Island is a pre-Columbian Maya archaeological site in the present-day Mexican state of Campeche. A small limestone island on the Yucatán Peninsula's Gulf coast with only a tidal inlet separating it from the mainland, Jaina served as an elite ...
figurines. Many ballplayers of the Classic era are seen with a right kneepad—no left—and a wrapped right forearm, as shown in the Maya image above.
Rubber black balls
The sizes or weights of the balls actually used in the ballgame are not known with any certainty. While several dozen ancient balls have been recovered, they were originally laid down as offerings in a sacrificial bog or spring, and there is no evidence that any of these were used in the ballgame. In fact, some of these extant votive balls were created specifically ''as'' offerings.
However, based on a review of modern-day game balls, ancient rubber balls, and other archaeological evidence, it is presumed by most researchers that the ancient hip-ball was made of a mix from one or another of the latex-producing plants found all the way from the southeastern rain forests to the northern desert. Most balls were made from latex sap of the lowland ''Castilla elastica
''Castilla elastica'', the Panama rubber tree, is a tree native to the tropical areas of Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. It was the principal source of latex among the Mesoamerican peoples in pre-Columbian times. The latex g ...
'' tree. Someone discovered that by mixing latex with sap from the vine of a species of morning glory ('' Calonyction aculeatum'') they could turn the slippery polymers in raw latex into a resilient rubber. The size varied between (measured in hand spans) and weighed . The ball used in the ancient handball or stick-ball game was probably slightly larger and heavier than a modern-day baseball.[
Some Maya depictions, such as this relief, show balls or more in diameter. Academic consensus is that these depictions are exaggerations or symbolic, as are, for example, the impossibly unwieldy headdresses worn in the same portrayals.][
]
Ballcourt
The game was played within a large masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by mortar; the term ''masonry'' can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are bricks, building ...
structure. Built in a form that changed remarkably little during 2,700 years, over 1,300 Mesoamerican ballcourts have been identified, 60% in the last 20 years alone. All ballcourts have the same general shape: a long narrow playing alley flanked by walls with both horizontal and sloping (or, more rarely, vertical) surfaces. The walls were often plastered and brightly painted. In early ballcourts the alleys were open-ended, later ballcourts had enclosed end-zones, giving the structure an
-shape when viewed from above.
While the length-to-width ratio remained relatively constant at about 4-to-1, there was tremendous variation in ballcourt size: The playing field of the Great Ballcourt at Chichen Itza, by far the largest, measures 96.5 meters long by 30 meters wide, and the Ceremonial Court at Tikal
Tikal () (''Tik’al'' in modern Mayan orthography) is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in a rainforest in Guatemala. It is one of the largest archeological sites and urban centers of the pre-C ...
was only 16 meters by 5 meters.
Across Mesoamerica, ballcourts were built and used for many generations. Although ballcourts are found within most sizable Mesoamerican ruins, they are not equally distributed across time or geography. For example, the Late Classic site of El Tajín
El Tajín is a pre-Columbian archeological site in southern Mexico and is one of the largest and most important cities of the Mesoamerican chronology, Classic era of Mesoamerica. A part of the Classic Veracruz culture, El Tajín flourished from ...
, the largest city of the ballgame-obsessed Classic Veracruz culture
Classic Veracruz culture (or Gulf Coast Classic culture) refers to a cultural area in the north and central areas of the present-day Mexican state of Veracruz, a culture that existed from roughly 100 to 1000 CE, or during the Classic era.
...
, has at least 18 ballcourts, and Cantona, a nearby contemporaneous site, sets the record with 24. In contrast, northern Chiapas
Chiapas (; Tzotzil language, Tzotzil and Tzeltal language, Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, ...
and the northern Maya Lowlands[ have relatively few, and ballcourts are conspicuously absent at some major sites, including ]Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'') (; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is ...
, Bonampak
Bonampak (known anciently as ''Ak'e'' or, in its immediate area as ''Usiij Witz'', 'Vulture Hill') is an ancient Maya archaeological site in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The site is approximately south of the larger site of the people Yaxchilan, ...
, and Tortuguero, although Mesoamerican ballgame iconography has been found there.
Ancient cities with particularly fine ballcourts in good condition include Tikal
Tikal () (''Tik’al'' in modern Mayan orthography) is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in a rainforest in Guatemala. It is one of the largest archeological sites and urban centers of the pre-C ...
, Yaxha
Yaxha (or Yaxhá in Spanish orthography) is a Mesoamerican archaeological site in the northeast of the Petén Basin region, and a former ceremonial centre and city of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. Yaxha was the third largest city in the reg ...
, Copán
Copán is an archaeological site of the Maya civilization in the Copán Department of western Honduras, not far from the border with Guatemala. This ancient Maya city mirrors the beauty of the physical landscape in which it flourished—a fert ...
, Coba
Coba ( es, Cobá) is an ancient Maya city on the Yucatán Peninsula, located in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The site is the nexus of the largest network of stone causeways of the ancient Maya world, and it contains many engraved and sculp ...
, Iximche
Iximcheʼ () (or Iximché using Spanish orthography) is a Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican archaeological site in the western highlands of Guatemala. Iximche was the capital of the Late Postclassic Kaqchikel Maya kingdom from 1470 until its abandon ...
, Monte Albán
Monte Albán is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site in the Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Municipality in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca (17.043° N, 96.767°W). The site is located on a low mountainous range rising above the plain in the ...
, Uxmal
Uxmal (Yucatec Maya: ''Óoxmáal'' ) is an ancient Maya city of the classical period located in present-day Mexico. It is considered one of the most important archaeological sites of Maya culture, along with Palenque, Chichen Itza and Calakmul i ...
, Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza , es, Chichén Itzá , often with the emphasis reversed in English to ; from yua, Chiʼchʼèen Ìitshaʼ () "at the mouth of the well of the Itza people" was a large pre-Columbian city built by the Maya people of the Terminal ...
, Yagul
Yagul is an archaeological site and former city-state associated with the Zapotec civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, located in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The site was declared one of the country's four Natural Monuments on 13 October 19 ...
, Xochicalco
Xochicalco () is a pre-Columbian archaeological site in Miacatlán Municipality in the western part of the Mexican state of Morelos. The name ''Xochicalco'' may be translated from Nahuatl as "in the house of Flowers". The site is located 38 ...
, Mixco Viejo
Mixco Viejo () ("Old Mixco"), occasionally spelt Mixcu Viejo, is an archaeological site in the north east of the Chimaltenango department of Guatemala, some to the north of Guatemala City and from the junction of the rivers Pixcaya and Mo ...
, and Zaculeu
Zaculeu or Saqulew is a pre-Columbian Maya archaeological site in the highlands of western Guatemala, about outside the modern city of Huehuetenango. Occupation at the site dates to the Early Classic period (AD 250–600) of Mesoameric ...
.
Ballcourts were public spaces used for a variety of elite cultural events and ritual activities like musical performances and festivals, and, of course, the ballgame. Pictorial depictions often show musicians playing at ballgames, and votive deposit
A votive offering or votive deposit is one or more objects displayed or deposited, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place for religious purposes. Such items are a feature of modern and ancient societies and are generally ...
s buried at the Main Ballcourt at Tenochtitlan
, ; es, Tenochtitlan also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, ; es, México-Tenochtitlan was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear. The date 13 March 1325 was ...
contained miniature whistles, ocarina
The ocarina is a wind musical instrument; it is a type of vessel flute. Variations exist, but a typical ocarina is an enclosed space with four to twelve finger holes and a mouthpiece that projects from the body. It is traditionally made from c ...
s, and drums
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...
. A pre-Columbian ceramic from western Mexico shows what appears to be a wrestling match taking place on a ballcourt.
Cultural aspects
Proxy for warfare
The Mesoamerican ballgame was a ritual deeply ingrained in Mesoamerican cultures and served purposes beyond that of a mere sporting event. Fray Juan de Torquemada
Juan de Torquemada (c. 1562 – 1624) was a Franciscan friar, active as missionary in colonial Mexico and considered the "leading Franciscan chronicler of his generation." Administrator, engineer, architect and ethnographer, he is most fam ...
, a 16th-century Spanish missionary and historian, tells that the Aztec emperor Axayacatl
Axayacatl (; nci, āxāyacatl ; es, Axayácatl ; meaning "face of water"; –1481) was the sixth of the of Tenochtitlan and Emperor of the Aztec Triple Alliance.
Biography
Early life and background
Axayacatl was a son of the princess Ato ...
played Xihuitlemoc, the leader of Xochimilco
Xochimilco (; nci, Xōchimīlco, ) is a borough (''demarcación territorial'') of Mexico City. The borough is centered on the formerly independent city of Xochimilco, which was established on what was the southern shore of Lake Xochimilco in the ...
, wagering his annual income against several Xochimilco chinampas
Chinampa ( nah, chināmitl ) is a technique used in Mesoamerican agriculture which relies on small, rectangular areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico. They are built up on wetlands of a lake o ...
. Ixtlilxochitl, a contemporary of Torquemada, relates that Topiltzin, the Toltec
The Toltec culture () was a Pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula (Mesoamerican site), Tula, Hidalgo (state), Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoam ...
king, played against three rivals, with the winner ruling over the losers.[ Santley, pp. 14–15.]
These examples and others are cited by many researchers who have made compelling arguments that the game served as a way to defuse or resolve conflicts without genuine warfare, to settle disputes through a ballgame instead of a battle. Over time, then, the ballgame's role would expand to include not only external mediation, but also the resolution of competition and conflict within the society as well.[
This "boundary maintenance" or "conflict resolution" theory would also account for some of the irregular distribution of ballcourts. Overall, there appears to be a negative correlation between the degree of political centralization and the number of ballcourts at a site.][ For example, the ]Aztec
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...
Empire, with a strong centralized state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
and few external rivals, had relatively few ballcourts while Middle Classic Cantona, with 24 ballcourts, had many diverse cultures residing there under a relatively weak state.
Other scholars support these arguments by pointing to the warfare imagery often found at ballcourts:
*The southeast panel of the South Ballcourt at El Tajín shows the protagonist ballplayer being dressed in a warrior's garb.
*Captives are a prominent part of ballgame iconography. For example:
:::Several ceramic figurines show war captives holding game balls.
:::The ballcourt at Toniná
Tonina (or Toniná in Spanish orthography) is a pre-Columbian archaeological site and ruined city of the Maya civilization located in what is now the Mexican state of Chiapas, some 13 km (8.1 mi) east of the town of Ocosingo.
The sit ...
was decorated with sculptures of bound captives.
:::A captive-within-the-ball motif is seen on the Hieroglyphic Stairs at Structure 33 in Yaxchilan
Yaxchilan () is an ancient Maya city located on the bank of the Usumacinta River in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. In the Late Classic Period Yaxchilan was one of the most powerful Maya states along the course of the Usumacinta River, with Pi ...
and on Altar 8 at Tikal
Tikal () (''Tik’al'' in modern Mayan orthography) is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in a rainforest in Guatemala. It is one of the largest archeological sites and urban centers of the pre-C ...
.
*The modern-day descendant of the ballgame, ''ulama'', "until quite recently was connected with warfare and many reminders of that association remain".
Human sacrifice
The association between human sacrifice and the ballgame appears rather late in the archaeological record, no earlier than the Classic era.[ The association was particularly strong within the Classic Veracruz and the Maya cultures, where the most explicit depictions of human sacrifice can be seen on the ballcourt panels—for example at El Tajín (850–1100 CE) and at Chichen Itza (900–1200 CE)—as well as on the decapitated ballplayer stelae from the Classic Veracruz site of Aparicio (700–900 CE). The Postclassic Maya religious and quasi-historical narrative, the ]Popol Vuh
''Popol Vuh'' (also ''Popol Wuj'' or ''Popul Vuh'' or ''Pop Vuj'') is a text recounting the mythology and history of the Kʼicheʼ people, one of the Maya peoples, who inhabit Guatemala and the Mexican states of Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatan and Q ...
, also links human sacrifice with the ballgame (see below).
Captives were often shown in Maya art
Ancient Maya art is the visual arts of the Maya civilization, an eastern and south-eastern Mesoamerican culture made up of a great number of small kingdoms in present-day Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. Many regional artistic traditions e ...
, and it is assumed that these captives were sacrificed after losing a rigged ritual ballgame. Rather than nearly nude and sometimes battered captives, however, the ballcourts at El Tajín and Chichen Itza show the sacrifice of practiced ballplayers, perhaps the captain of a team.[ Cohodas, p. 255] Decapitation is particularly associated with the ballgame—severed heads are featured in much Late Classic ballgame art and appear repeatedly in the Popol Vuh
''Popol Vuh'' (also ''Popol Wuj'' or ''Popul Vuh'' or ''Pop Vuj'') is a text recounting the mythology and history of the Kʼicheʼ people, one of the Maya peoples, who inhabit Guatemala and the Mexican states of Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatan and Q ...
. There has been speculation that the heads and skulls were used as balls.
Symbolism
Little is known about the game's symbolic contents. Several themes recur in scholarly writing.
*Astronomy. The bouncing ball
The physics of a bouncing ball concerns the physical behaviour of bouncing balls, particularly its motion before, during, and after impact against the surface of another body. Several aspects of a bouncing ball's behaviour serve as an introd ...
is thought to have represented the sun. The stone scoring rings are speculated to signify sunrise and sunset, or equinoxes.
*War. This is the most obvious symbolic aspect of the game (see also above, "Proxy for warfare"). Among the Mayas, the ball can represent the vanquished enemy, both in the late-Postclassic K'iche' kingdom (Popol Vuh), and in Classic kingdoms such as that of Yaxchilan.
*Fertility. Formative period ballplayer figurines—most likely females—often wear maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
icons. At El Tajín, the ballplayer sacrifice ensures the renewal of pulque
Pulque (; nci, metoctli), or octli, is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of the maguey (agave) plant. It is traditional in central Mexico, where it has been produced for millennia. It has the color of milk, a rather viscous c ...
, an alcoholic maguey Maguey may refer to various American plants:
* Genus '' Agave'', especially
** Species ''Agave americana'', the century plant
** Species ''Agave salmiana
''Agave salmiana'' (also known as ''maguey pulquero'' and green maguey) is a species of the ...
beverage.
*Cosmologic duality. The game is seen as a struggle between day and night,[ and/or a battle between life and the underworld. Courts were considered portals to the underworld and were built in key locations within the central ceremonial precincts. Playing ball engaged one in the maintenance of the cosmic order of the universe and the ritual regeneration of life.
]
Nahua
According to an important Nahua
The Nahuas () are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. The Mexica (Aztecs) were of Nahua ethnicity, a ...
source, the Leyenda de los Soles,[ the Toltec king Huemac played ball against the Tlalocs, with precious stones and quetzal feathers at stake. Huemac won the game. When instead of precious stones and feathers, the rain deities offered Huemac their young maize ears and maize leaves, Huemac refused. As a consequence of this vanity, the Toltecs suffered a four-year drought. The same ball game match, with its unfortunate aftermath, signified the beginning of the end of the Toltec reign.
]
Maya
The Maya Twin myth of the Popol Vuh
''Popol Vuh'' (also ''Popol Wuj'' or ''Popul Vuh'' or ''Pop Vuj'') is a text recounting the mythology and history of the Kʼicheʼ people, one of the Maya peoples, who inhabit Guatemala and the Mexican states of Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatan and Q ...
establishes the importance of the game (referred to in Classic Maya as ''pitz'') as a symbol for warfare intimately connected to the themes of fertility and death. The story begins with the Hero Twins' father, Hun Hunahpu Hun Hunahpu (pronounced ), or 'Head- Apu I' (a calendrical name) is a figure in Mayan mythology. According to ''Popol Vuh'' he was the father of the Maya Hero Twins, Head-Apu and Xbalanque. As their shared calendrical day name suggests, Head-Apu I w ...
, and uncle, Vucub Hunahpu, playing ball near the underworld, Xibalba
(), roughly translated as "place of fright", is the name of the underworld (or quc, Mitnal) in Maya mythology, ruled by the Maya death gods and their helpers. In 16th-century Verapaz, the entrance to Xibalba was traditionally held to be a ...
. The lords of the underworld became annoyed with the noise from the ball playing and so the primary lords of Xibalba, One Death and Seven Death, sent owls to lure the brothers to the ballcourt of Xibalba, situated on the western edge of the underworld. Despite the danger the brothers fall asleep and are captured and sacrificed by the lords of Xibalba and then buried in the ballcourt. Hun Hunahpu is decapitated and his head hung in a fruit tree, which bears the first calabash
Calabash (; ''Lagenaria siceraria''), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, birdhouse gourd, New Guinea bean, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvested young to be consumed ...
gourd
Gourds include the fruits of some flowering plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, particularly ''Cucurbita'' and ''Lagenaria''. The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. One of the earli ...
s. Hun Hunahpu's head spits into the hands of a passing goddess who conceives and bears the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque. The Hero Twins eventually find the ballgame equipment in their father’s house and start playing, again to the annoyance of the Lords of Xibalba, who summon the twins to play the ballgame amidst trials and dangers. In one notable episode, Hunahpu is decapitated by bats. His brother uses a squash as Hunahpu's substitute head until his real one, now used as a ball by the Lords, can be retrieved and placed back on Hunahpu's shoulders. The twins eventually go on to play the ballgame with the Lords of Xibalba, defeating them. However, the twins are unsuccessful in reviving their father, so they leave him buried in the ball court of Xibalba.
The ballgame in Mesoamerican civilizations
Maya civilization
In Maya Ballgame the Hero Twins
The Maya Hero Twins are the central figures of a narrative included within the colonial Kʼicheʼ document called Popol Vuh, and constituting the oldest Maya myth to have been preserved in its entirety. Called Hunahpu and Xbalanque in the Kʼic ...
myth links ballcourts with death and its overcoming. The ballcourt becomes a place of transition, a liminal stage between life and death. The ballcourt markers along the centerline of the Classic playing field depicted ritual and mythical scenes of the ballgame, often bordered by a quatrefoil
A quatrefoil (anciently caterfoil) is a decorative element consisting of a symmetrical shape which forms the overall outline of four partially overlapping circles of the same diameter. It is found in art, architecture, heraldry and traditional ...
that marked a portal into another world. The Twins themselves, however, are usually absent from Classic ballgame scenes, with the Classic forerunner of Vucub Caquix
Vucub-Caquix ( quc, Wuqub’ Kaqix, , possibly meaning 'seven-Macaw') is the name of a bird demon defeated by the Hero Twins of a Kʼicheʼ people, Kʼicheʼ-Mayan myth preserved in an 18th-century document, entitled ʼPopol Vuhʼ. The episode of t ...
of the Copán
Copán is an archaeological site of the Maya civilization in the Copán Department of western Honduras, not far from the border with Guatemala. This ancient Maya city mirrors the beauty of the physical landscape in which it flourished—a fert ...
ball court, holding the severed arm of Hunahpu, as an important exception.[
]
Teotihuacan
No ballcourt has yet been identified at Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'') (; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is ...
, making it by far the largest Classic era site without one. In fact, the ballgame seems to have been nearly forsaken not only in Teotihuacan, but in areas such as Matacapan or Tikal
Tikal () (''Tik’al'' in modern Mayan orthography) is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in a rainforest in Guatemala. It is one of the largest archeological sites and urban centers of the pre-C ...
that were under Teotihuacano influence.
Despite the lack of a ballcourt, ball games were not unknown there. The murals of the Tepantitla compound at Teotihuacan show a number of small scenes that seem to portray various types of ball games, including:
*A two-player game in an open-ended masonry ballcourt.[ Taladoire (2001) p. 112.] (See third picture below.)
*Teams using sticks on an open field whose end zones are marked by stone monuments.
*Separate renditions of single players. (See first two details below.)
It has been hypothesized that, for reasons as yet unknown, the stick-game eclipsed the hip-ball game at Teotihuacan and at Teotihuacan-influenced cities, and only after the fall of Teotihuacan did the hip-ball game reassert itself.
File:Tepantitla mural, Ballplayer B Cropped.jpg, Ballplayer painting from the Tepantitla murals.
File:Tepantitla mural, Ballplayer A (Daquella manera).jpg, Ballplayer painting from the Tepantitla, Teotihuacan murals. Note the speech scroll
In art history a speech scroll (also called a banderole or phylactery) is an illustrative device denoting speech, song, or other types of sound.
Developed independently on two continents, the device was in use by artists within Mesoamerican cult ...
issuing from the player's mouth.
File:Tepantitla Ballcourt & Ballplayers Teotihuacan.jpg, Detail of a Tepantitla mural showing a hip-ball game on an open-ended ballcourt, represented by the parallel horizontal lines.
Aztec
The Aztec version of the ballgame is called ''ōllamalitzli'' (sometimes spelled ''ullamaliztli'') and are derived from the word ''ōlli'' "rubber" and the verb ''ōllama'' or "to play ball". The ball itself was called ''ōllamaloni'' and the ballcourt was called a ''tlachtli'' . In the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan
, ; es, Tenochtitlan also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, ; es, México-Tenochtitlan was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear. The date 13 March 1325 was ...
the largest ballcourt was called ''Teotlachco'' ("in the holy ballcourt")—here several important rituals would take place on the festivals of the month Panquetzalitzli, including the sacrifice
Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly exi ...
of four war captives to the honor of Huitzilopochtli and his herald Paynal.
For the Aztecs, the playing of the ballgame also had religious significance, but where the 16th-century K´iche´ Maya saw the game as a battle between the lords of the underworld and their earthly adversaries, their Aztec contemporaries may have seen it as a battle of the sun, personified by Huitzilopochtli, against the forces of night, led by the moon and the stars, and represented by the goddess Coyolxauhqui and Coatlicue's sons the 400 Huitznahuah. But apart from holding important ritual and mythical meaning, the ballgame for the Aztecs was a sport and a pastime played for fun, although in general, the Aztec game was a prerogative of the nobles.
Young Aztecs would be taught ballplaying in the calmecac
The Calmecac (, from ''calmecatl'' meaning "line/grouping of houses/buildings" and by extension a scholarly campus) was a school for the sons of Aztec nobility ('' pīpiltin'' ) in the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican history, where they w ...
school—and those who were most proficient might become so famous that they could play professionally. Games would frequently be staged in the different city wards and markets—often accompanied by large-scale betting. Diego Durán
Diego Durán (c. 1537 – 1588) was a Dominican friar best known for his authorship of one of the earliest Western books on the history and culture of the Aztecs, ''The History of the Indies of New Spain'', a book that was much criticised in hi ...
, an early Spanish chronicler, said that "these wretches... sold their children in order to bet and even staked themselves and became slaves".
Since the rubber tree ''Castilla elastica
''Castilla elastica'', the Panama rubber tree, is a tree native to the tropical areas of Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. It was the principal source of latex among the Mesoamerican peoples in pre-Columbian times. The latex g ...
'' was not found in the highlands of the Aztec Empire, the Aztecs generally received balls and rubber as tribute from the lowland areas where it was grown. The ''Codex Mendoza
The Codex Mendoza is an Aztec codex, believed to have been created around the year 1541. It contains a history of both the Aztec rulers and their conquests as well as a description of the daily life of pre-conquest Aztec society. The codex is wr ...
'' gives a figure of 16,000 lumps of raw rubber being imported to Tenochtitlan from the southern provinces every six months, although not all of it was used for making balls.
In 1528, soon after the Spanish conquest
The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its predece ...
, Cortés sent a troupe of ''ōllamanime'' (ballplayers) to Spain to perform for Charles V Charles V may refer to:
* Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558)
* Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain
* Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise
* Charles V, Duke of Lorraine (1643–1690)
* Infan ...
where they were drawn by the German Christoph Weiditz. Besides the fascination with their exotic visitors, the Europeans were amazed by the bouncing rubber balls.
Pacific coast
Ballcourts, monuments with ballgame imagery and ballgame paraphernalia have been excavated at sites along the Pacific coast of Guatemala and El Salvador including the Cotzumalhuapa nuclear zone sites of Bilbao
)
, motto =
, image_map =
, mapsize = 275 px
, map_caption = Interactive map outlining Bilbao
, pushpin_map = Spain Basque Country#Spain#Europe
, pushpin_map_caption ...
and El Baúl
El Baúl is a Pre-Columbian archaeological site in present-day Escuintla Department, Guatemala. El Baúl, along with the sites of Bilbao and El Castillo, is part of the Cotzumalhuapa Archaeological Zone. It was occupied during the prehistori ...
and sites right at the southeast periphery of the Mesoamerican region such as Quelepa
Quelepa is an important archaeological site located in eastern El Salvador. Generally considered to have been settled by the Lenca people, the site was founded around 400 BC in the Late Preclassic period (500 BC - AD 250). The inhabitants cons ...
.[
]
Caribbean
Batey, a ball game played on many Caribbean islands including Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
, 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 ...
, and the West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
, has been proposed as a descendant of the Mesoamerican ballgame, perhaps through the Maya.
In popular culture
The game has been depicted in films:
* The American Dreamworks Pictures
DreamWorks Pictures (also known as DreamWorks SKG and formerly DreamWorks Studios, commonly referred to as DreamWorks) is an American film company and distribution label of Amblin Partners. It was originally founded on October 12, 1994 as a li ...
traditionally animated film ''The Road to El Dorado
''The Road to El Dorado'' is a 2000 American animated adventure film produced by DreamWorks Animation and released by DreamWorks Pictures. It was the third animated feature produced by DreamWorks. The film was directed by Eric "Bibo" Bergeron a ...
'', directed by Bibo Bergeron
Eric "Bibo" Bergeron (born July 14, 1965) is a French animator and film director. His work includes ''The Road to El Dorado'' (2000), ''Shark Tale'' (2004) and ''A Monster in Paris'' (2011).
Bergeron has served as animator on films like '' Aster ...
and Don Paul, released on March 31, 2000.
References
Cited sources
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Further reading
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"Proyecto Ulama 2003"
accessed October 2007.
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External links
NBA Hoops Online
A figurine showing ballplayer gear
from the Gulf coast's Classic Veracruz culture
Classic Veracruz culture (or Gulf Coast Classic culture) refers to a cultural area in the north and central areas of the present-day Mexican state of Veracruz, a culture that existed from roughly 100 to 1000 CE, or during the Classic era.
...
.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mesoamerican Ballgame
Ancient sports
Ball games
Mesoamerican sports
Indigenous sports and games of the Americas
Sacrifice
15th-century BC establishments