Mesoamerican ballgame
Categories: Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica | Ball games
The Mesoamerican ballgame was a sport with ritual associations played for over 3000 years by the peoples of Mesoamerica in Pre-Columbian times, and in a few places continues to be played by the local Amerind inhabitants. It may have originated with the Olmecs (La Venta culture, c. 8000-400 B.C.E.) or perhaps earlier. The game appears in various myths, sometimes as a struggle between day and night deities, or the battles between the gods in the sky and the lords of the underworld. The ball symbolized the sun, moon, or stars, and the rings (see below) signified sunrise and sunset, or equinoxes.
As might be expected with a game played over so long a timespan in several different nations, details of the games varied over time and place, so the Mesoamerican ballgame might be more accurately seen as a family of related games. Some versions were played between two individuals, others between 2 teams of players. For the Aztecs, it was a nobles' game and was often associated with heavy betting.
The games shared the characteristics of being played with a hard rubber ball in a sunken or walled linear court, sometimes with perpendiculars at the ends, so that the field is shaped like a capital I with serifs. The goal was to knock the ball into the opponents end of the court; in post-Classical times, the object was to make the ball pass through one of two vertical stone rings that were placed on each side of the court.
The ball game was extremely violent. Players wore heavy padding. Even so, there were often serious injuries, and occasionally death. On some occasions post-game ceremonies featured the sacrifice of the captain and other players on the losing side. The association of the game with sacrifice and death was particularly marked on the Gulf coast. A loser's skull might be used as the core around which a new rubber ball would be made. (Guides at Chichen Itza assert that the prize for the winning team was to be deified by losing their heads, supposedly at the hands of the losing team.) The Popul Vuh, what is often called "The Maya Bible", has long sections relating stories of the ritual ballgames between the Maya Hero Twins and the demonic Lords of the Xibalba.
Children also played the game casually for simple recreation.
Across Mesoamerica, ball courts were built and used for many generations, and their shapes and sizes do vary. Some sites had multiple ball courts, but others had only one. In some parts of Mesoamerica ballcourts are found in most or all sizable ruins, while in other parts they are less common.
The court or field where the game was played was called tlachtli by the Aztec and tlaxtli by neighboring central Mexican peoples; the game itself was called ollama, or ulama in Sinaloa (where it continues to be played); and poc-ta-tok was a Yucatec Maya name for the game.
Ancient cities with particularly fine ballcourts in good states of preservation include Copán, Iximche, Monte Albán, Uxmal, and Zaculeu; the grandest ancient ballcourt of all is at Chichen Itza, measuring 166 by 68 metres.
Ball players and the ballgame are a common theme in Mesoamerican art.
See also
References
- Whittington E. Michael (Ed.) (2001). The Sport of Life and Death - The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Mint Museum of Art: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0500051089.
- Scarborough, Vernon L. and Wilcox, David R. (Eds.) (1991). The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.ca:Joc de pilota mesoamericà
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