What were the main rules of the ball game?

What were the main rules of the ball game?

While no one knows the exact rules of the ball game, Spaniards who saw the Aztec games in the 1500s reported that two teams of two to five players had to keep the ball in the air without using their hands or feet. They hit the ball with their upper arms, thighs or hips.

How did the Mayan ball game work?

Two teams would compete against each other to get a large rubber ball through a stone ring. The ball had to be kept off the ground using only knees, elbows, or hips, never the hands or feet. Prisoners of war were forced to play ulama, and the losers may have been put to death.

What happens if you lost the Mayan ball game?

The penalty for losing a game was sometimes unusually harsh: death. The leader of the team who lost the game was sometimes killed. This fit in with the Mayan belief that human sacrifice was necessary for the continued success of the peoples’ agriculture, trade, and overall health.

What was the purpose of the Mesoamerican ballgame?

The primary purpose of the ballgame appears to have been theological, as the game represented different religious aspects important to the people of Mesoamerica, including the cycles of the sun, fertility, and maize.

What is the name of the Mesoamerican ballgame?

ōllamalitzli
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 [ˈtɬatʃtɬi].

How are points scored in the Mesoamerican ball game?

The most common method of winning the Mesoamerican ball game was likely through a scoring system. Teams would lose points for failing to return a ball or letting it bounce a certain number of times, among other penalties. They would gain points for getting the ball past the other team.

How did the Mayan ball game originated?

The earliest evidence of the practice of the ball game comes to us from ceramic figurines of ballplayers recovered from El Opeño, Michoacan state in western Mexico about 1700 BC. Fourteen rubber balls were found at the shrine of El Manatí in Veracruz, deposited over a long period beginning about 1600 BC.

Did Mayans play soccer with human heads?

Humans and the lords of the underworld battled it out by playing the game, according to the creation story the known as the Popol Vuh. In this way, the ball court was a portal to Xibalba — the Mayan underworld. There are even some depictions of ball players playing with the heads of the losers in place of a ball.

What is the medium of the Mayan ball player?

The Maya, and other Mesoamerican civilizations like the Olmec and Aztec, figured out how to use the sap, or latex, from the rubber tree to fashion the balls that were used during their games. Can you imagine, even today, playing a game with a ball that is not made of some kind of rubber?

Why was sacrifice an important element in the Mesoamerican ballgame?

Since human sacrifice played such an important part in all of the Mesoamerican cultures, it was often also a central part of the ballgame. The Aztecs sacrificed more humans than any other Mesoamerican culture and they apparently used the ballgame as a potential source, or medium, for human sacrifice.

How did the Mesoamerican ballgame players hit the ball?

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 and weighed as much as 4 kg (9 lbs), and sizes differed greatly over time or according to the version played.

What did Aztecs do for fun?

The Aztecs enjoyed playing games. One of the most popular games was a board game called Patolli. Just like with many board games today, players would move their pieces around a board by rolling dice. Another popular game was Ullamalitzli.