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The Mesoamerican ballgame, was a sport with ritual associations played for over 3000 years by the peoples of Mesoamerica in Pre-Columbian times. A modern version of the game called Ulama continues to be played in a few places by the local Amerind inhabitants. Prehispanic Ball Courts have been found from Arizona to Nicaragua and also in various Caribbean Islands such as Cuba and Puerto Rico. This emphasizes the popularity of this American sport. While the game was played casually for simple recreation, including by children and women, the game also had important ritual aspects, and major formal ballgames would be held as ritual events.
Origins
The Mesoamerican ballgame is at least as old as the Olmec civilization. In fact, the Aztecs' name for the Olmecs, olmeca, means "rubber people" (from Nahuatl ulli, "rubber") as they attributed the origin of the ballgame to this early people. A dozen rubber balls, ranging in diameter from 10 cm to 20 cm, have been found at El Manatí, an Olmec sacrificial bog. The earliest balls, which are also the smallest, have been dated to 1600 BCE. These rubber balls were found with other ritual offerings, indicating that even at this early date, the game had religious and ritual connotations.
The oldest ballcourt yet discovered, at Paso de la Amada, dates to approximately 1400 BCE. Approximately 80 meters (260 feet) long and 8 meters (26 feet) wide, it was situated between two parallel mounds with benches, 2½ meters (8 feet) deep and 30 cm (1 foot) tall, running along the mounds.[3]
A rudimentary ball court has also been discovered at the Olmec site of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán and there is signficant evidence in the form of Olmec artwork. Excavations have also uncovered a number of ballplayer figurines at San Lorenzo, radiocarbon-dated as far back as 1250-1150 BCE. These 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 maize iconography, suggesting an association between the ballgame and fertility rituals.
Soon after the 1521 conquest of the Aztecs by the Spanish, Cortez himself brought a team of Mexica ballplayers and their equipment to Spain where they performed exhibition games for the Spanish Court and his court. Besides the fascination with their exotic visitors, the Europeans were amazed by the bouncing rubber balls.
Maya civilization
The Maya ballgame was named pitz, and the action of play was Ti Pitziil in Classic Maya. Its association with mythology were not only central to religious Maya belief. The oldest court accurately dated has been found in Nakbe, Petén, Guatemala, dating from 500 BCE.[citation needed]
The number of players or Pitziil, varies between 2 and 5 in each Team, they use protection in the Head (Pix'om), Hips (Tz´um) made of deer or jaguar skin, knees and elbows (Kipachq’ab’), these were the only parts of the body allowed to hit the ball, that was made of a mix from rubber (KIK) and the Guamol tree (Calonyction aculeatum), the size varied between 10 and 12 inches and weighted 3 to 6 pounds during the Classic period.
The Popol Vuh establishes the importance of the Maya ball game as more than just a sport. It provides important analogues for interpreting the ball game from a mythological perspective. The first adventures related to the ball game establish the relationship between people and gods. The story begins with the Hero Twins' father, Hun Hunahpu, and uncle, Vucub Hunahpu, born to the old gods Xpiacoc and Xmucane. The lords of the underworld, Xibalba got annoyed with the noise from the Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu’s ball playing. The brothers’ ball court is located on the eastern edge of the Earth near the great abyss. The primary lords of Xibalba, One Death and Seven Death, send owls to lure the twins to play ball in the ball court of Xibalba, situated on the western edge of the underworld. It is a dangerous trip though, and the brothers fall asleep. They are sacrificed by the lords of Xibalba and buried in the ball court. The story relates the playing of the ball game with sacrifice. Hun Hunahpu’s head is cut off and placed in a fruit tree, which bears calabash gourds for the first time. This is also connected with the prominence of decorative cut heads of animals and birds worn as headdresses.
The story continues after the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, are born. They find the ball game equipment in their father’s house and start playing the ball game, to the annoyance of the gods of Xibalba again. Unlike their father and uncle, the twins survive various tough tests, with the help of a mosquito (who bites each of the gods of Xibalba, forcing them to identify themselves to the boys). They go on to play the ball game with the lords of Xibalba. Along the way, the twins deceive the lords of Xibalba into thinking the twins are dead when they jump into a soup. Miraculously the twins are reborn as catfish, change back to human form, and perform mock sacrifices in which the victim is allegedly resurrected. When a couple of the lords of Xibalba, One Death and Seven Death, offer themselves for a mock sacrifice, the twins trick the gods and carry out a real sacrifice. The twins spare the lives of the remaining gods of Xibalba, but tell them that henceforth they will only be allowed to be offered sacrifices of animal blood and croton sap and that they can only bother people on Earth who are weak or have guilt. The twins are unsuccessful at their attempts at reviving their father so they leave him buried in the ball court of Xibalba. That’s why the words ball court and graveyard are synonymous. Ball courts became ritually linked with death in perpetuity.The ball court became a place of transition, a liminal stage between life and death. The ball court makers along the centerline of the playing field depicted mythical scenes of the ball game, usually bordered by a quatrefoil that marked an opening of a portal into another world. One lesson from the Popol Vuh is that playing the ball game can be life-threatening and also that trickery may be the only way to deceive your opponents.
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), which has long sections relating stories of the ritual ballgames between the Maya Hero Twins and the demonic Lords of Xibalba, 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 and explaining humans’ place in the world.
Playing ball engaged one in the maintenance of the cosmic order of the universe and the ritual regeneration of life. It was a game of chance, skill, and trickery reflecting life. The team effort engaged individuals in shared behavior and culture, introducing, reinforcing, and reinventing the game of life and peoples’ place in the cosmic order. By Late Classic times, the ball game was ritually associated with the endemic warfare among city-states of the times. The success of military conquest was recreated in a public and ritual ball game, in which high-ranking war captives were defeated and sacrificed. Sometimes they were kept, tortured, and displayed for years before their sacrifice.
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