Mesoamerican ballgame

The Mesoamerican ballgame, known in Spanish as juego de pelota, 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.

Origins

The Mesoamerican ballgame may have originated with the Olmecs or perhaps earlier. Although one ball court was discovered at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, most evidence for the Olmec ballgame exists in the form of artwork. Early Olmec figurines depict wearing the same type of padded belts and padded arm and leg bands. Figurines were also found depicting female ballplayers wearing padded protection on their stomach and legs. The regalia of these figurines contain corn iconography which suggests an association between the ballgame and fertility rituals. It is likely that all ages and classes of people played the Olmec ballgame in an open field. The game followed Olmec trade networks out of Veracruz. Excavations by Michael Coe uncovered a number of ballplayer figurines at San Lorenzo which were radiocarbon-dated as far back as 1250-1150 BC. He also uncovered a stone monument, Monument 34, a life-size kneeling male wearing a padded belt, shoulder and knee protectors and a mirror pendant (a symbol of the Olmec Sun God). This monument could not be dated, but it is evidence of the growing significance of the ballgame in political and religious rituals.

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. With the rise of Maya culture, the significance of the ritual ballgame becomes clearer. Much time and energy was spent building ball courts. Courts were considered to be portals to the Maya underworld and were built in low-lying areas or at the foot of great vertical constructions. The Great Ball Court at Chichen Itza is the largest ball court in Mesoamerica. A six-panel carving at Chichen Itza depicts a scene from the Popul Vuh (the Maya creation story), indicating the cosmological significance of the ballgame in Maya ideology. Additional evidence of the Maya game comes from Maya vase paintings. Maya vases are often painted with scenes of the ritual ballgame. Players are depicted wearing padding on their forearms and knees and U-shaped yokes. The players are also often depicted wearing elaborate headdresses indicating their high status.

Versions of the game

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. According to Fray Diego Duran, gambling was often a problem. People evidently bet everything they owned and even staked themselves, ending up as slaves.

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 opponent's 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.

Understanding the importance of the rubber ball in the Mesoamerican ballgame is imperative if one is to grasp all of the levels of symbolism. Archaeological evidence indicates that rubber was already in use in Mesoamerica by the Early Formative Period (1600 BC). By the time of the Spanish Conquest, rubber was being exported from tropical zones to all over Mesoamerica. Iconography suggests that although there were many uses for rubber, rubber balls both for offerings and for ritual ballgames were the primary products. Solid rubber balls were burned in front of images of deities and inside pyramids and shrines. In addition to the symbolic equations already mentioned—such as the ball representing cosmological movement— the rubber balls were symbolic of fertility as both the Aztecs and the Maya equated the latex that flowed from inside of the tree with blood and semen.

The ball game was extremely violent. Players wore heavy padding. Even so, there were often serious injuries, and occasionally death. Some bruises were so bad that they would have to be cut open, and the blood squeezed out. This would have certainly been significant in the rituals of sacrifice and bloodletting that accompanied the Aztec ballgame. On some occasions post-game ceremonies featured the sacrifice of the captain and other players on the losing (some references say "winning") 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. (Conversely, 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 has long sections relating stories of the ritual ballgames between the Maya Hero Twins and the demonic Lords of 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 vary. Some sites had multiple ball courts, and others had only one. Ballcourts are found in most sizable Mesoamerican ruins, although in some areas they are conspicuously absent.

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 condition include Copán, Iximche, Monte Albán, Uxmal, and Zaculeu; the grandest ancient ballcourt of all is at Chichen Itza, measuring 166 by 68 metres. Strangely, a ball court has not been found in the ruins at Teotihuacan.

Ball game in art

Ball players and the ballgame are a common theme in Mesoamerican art. Vessels for the ritual consumption of cacao often depict detailed scenes of ball courts and ball players in full regailia--protective padding and elaborate headdresses. It is fitting that Maya vessels used for drinking cacao beverages are often decorated with scenes from the ritual ballgame; it represents many layers of symbolism. The cacao fruit is symbolic of a human heart because it is similarly divided into chambers. The beverage produced from cacao beans is dark and thick like blood, and is consumed in ritual practices. From another point of view, cacao beans are used as currency. It is thought that sacrifices performed following a ritual ballgame were attempts by rulers to appease the gods and ensure fertility and economic abundance. The rubber balls used in the ballgame also have economic symbolism in that the rubber used to produce them was also central to their trade economy. All of these layers interconnect so that scenes of the ritual ballgame, played to ensure economic stability and abundance, appear on vessels for drinking cacao--itself an economic staple, consumed ritually as a symbol for human blood. The vases are often rimmed with glyphs.

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.
Berden, Frances F. (2005) The Aztecs of Central Mexico An Imperial Society, Wadsworth, California.
Bradley, Douglas E. (1997) Life, Death and Duality: A Handbook of the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C. Collection of Ritual Ballgame Sculpture. University of Notre Dame.
Carrasco, David and Scott Sessions (1998) Daily Life of the Aztecs People of the Sun and Earth, Greenwood Press, Connecticut.
Foster, Lynn V. (2002) Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World. Facts On File, Inc., New York.
Nadal, Laura Fillroy (2001) Rubber and Rubber Balls in Mesoamerica", in The Sport of Life and Death - The Mesoamerican Ballgame, Thames and Hudson, New York.

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Origins

Versions of the game

Ball game in art

References

See also