The Ball Game

This curious figure is unfortunately badly broken, but its remaining features suggest a very early expression of the ball game, one of the defining elements of Mesoamerica's ancient civilizations. Widely dubbed the world's oldest-known team sport, the ball game dates to as early as the Olmec over two thousand years ago. (Similarities in architecture and chronology point to even earlier influences of the game coming from the Andes!)
The most intriguing parts of this piece are the sockets, which suggest that this kneeling sculpture had poseable wooden head and arms. The attire and posture might be of a ball player, one of the oldest such portrayals in Mesoamerica.

National Museum of Anthropology and History

The Olmecs early cultivated the rubber tree, inspiring the name 'People of the Land of Rubber.' However, no one knows what they called themselves; 'Olmec' is a Nahuatl name. In Nahuatl, the word for rubber, olli, and the word for motion, ollin, are not surprisingly derived from the same root - because rubber was so bouncy. From the tree's extract Mesoamericans produced a ball of hard rubber which came to slightly smaller than a human head. At right is an example from the Aztecs.
The stone disk at left comes from the Maya city of Chinkultic; its calendrical glyphs (9.9.17.12.14) correspond to a date in 591 CE. The man is assuming a defensive position as he deflects the ball, the exaggerated circle to the left, off his hip.

National Museum of Anthropology and History

The court is framed by two parallel walls, built at a low slope at the bottom so that the ball would bounce upward to keep the ball airborne. Two opponents or opposing teams faced each other from opposite sides of the open court; the ball was bounced off the players and off the stone walls, all with fast-paced action that made the game exciting to watch.
At right is a hoop from the Maya court presented here. In many courts, a single hoop extends from each of the two walls' centers. Points were scored by sending the ball through this stone hoop, much like a goal post or a basketball hoop.

Uxmal

Here are more examples of the designs used for the ball court hoops, these examples coming from the Aztec. (At least one of these hoops was originally Toltec, for the Aztecs had taken it from Tula for their own courts!) At the Toltec capital of Tula is an exemplar of the court design. Shaped like a capital "I" (after a South American model), this court is on a sunken platform, stressing how the game symbolized an arena in the underworld.

National Museum of Anthropology and History, Tula

The Toltec-influenced ballcourt at Chich'én Itzá represents many fundamental aspects of the game: an enormous playing field (the largest in Mesoamerica), two intact hoops, "box seats" for the kings, and reliefs of winning and losing players along the walls' slopes. (Details from the slope appear below.)
All at once the ball game was spectator sport, astrological study, and political engagement. As the ball bounced off the players and the courtside walls, priests analyzed the path of the ball and tried to discern how the path reflected the motion of the sun or Venus. The court was then the underworld through which the celestial body passed until its ultimately triumphant escape and ascension.

Chich'én Itzá

The image at left comes from a detail of the Mixtec Codex Colombino-Becker. The court is shaped like an "I," with two players facing each other off on the court. One of them is king Eight Deer (1063-1115), whose exploits form the narrative for the codex.
Rival individuals or teams usually hailed from different cities; when a team visited another city, the ruler followed to watch the game. The games were used to satisfy political demands and bring about negotiations. At right is a ceramic miniature of a game in Nayarit, with teams of three facing each other off while spectators sit atop the court's benches.

National Museum of Anthropology and History

While we have a wealth of details about the how the ball game was played from Maya and Aztec accounts, it is from the Gulf Coast that we find the greatest amount of gaming implements. The site of Tajín had at least seventeen courts, many of them so small that they were ritually symbolic rather than actually effective for gameplay. Tajín also produced a staggering amount of stone sculptures inspired by the game. These stone hacha or 'axe'-shaped figures may have served as point markers within the court. The two photos feature the same set from different angles. Most of them represent animals, yet one depicts a human face.

Xalapa Museum of Anthropology

Before a game, the players dressed in full regalia, as splendidly as warriors. In regions such as the Gulf Coast, players wore a palm-like object that either stood or hung from the waist. If the palms were all stone like this one, then they must have only been for pomp; playing with such a heavy stone piece hanging from the waist would have made the game extremely difficult. These palms are stylized into a descending monkey at left and an upturned turkey at right. (More Gulf Coast art dedicated to the ball game appears on the Tajín page.)

Xalapa Museum of Anthropology, Metropolitan Museum of Art

During the game the ball could bounce off a player's elbows, hips, knees and head. But it was a fast-flying piece of hard rubber!- sometimes headgear was required. One item in the player's regalia is the yoke, worn at the hips. Though something this sturdy would have been ideal to protect the player from impact at the waist, it seems too bulky to run with. The stone yoke must have also been for show prior to a game while wooden yokes may have been used during the actual game. The yokes here are carved into elaborate patterns, including a monkey's face in the instance at left.

Xalapa Museum of Anthropology, National Museum of Anthropology and History

"Sudden death" could become dangerously literal. The "head" of the losing team, by the fate of the gods, is chosen for sacrifice. Maya, Aztec, and Tajín traditions decapitated losing coaches. (Other interpretations argue that it was the winners who were in fact worthy of this highly esteemed ritual death.) In both of these reliefs, streams of blood emerge from the severed neck as serpents. This is an interesting metaphor because the serpent has a profound association with its embrace with the life-giving earth, and here the serpent is also compared to the streams of life-blood that return from Man to the earth.
The stele at left is from Tajín, Veracruz. At right is a relief from the ball court slope at Chich'én Itzá. Here the large ball contains with a human skull facing to the left, in the direction of the decapitated player. In the Popol Vuh myth of the K'ichee' Maya, the Lords of Death severed the head of the hero Hunahpú and even played game with it like a ball before he regained it.

Xalapa Museum of Anthropology, Chich'én Itzá