The Mayan ballgame: history, rules, and cultural significance

Mayan ball game is a traditional game that has been played with a rubber ball throughout Mesoamerica for centuries. The game is still played on a small scale today, with altered rules, but hit its prime in the years before Spanish colonization. This paper will outline key elements of the Mayan ball game how it was played and what its significance the culture was.

The Mayan ball game is also known as ollmaliztli in the Nahuatl language, which is basically Aztec and pitz in the Mayan language. The game is played with a rubber ball, as there was an abundance of rubber in this regions. It is believed to have started with the Olmec, who lives in Mexico to the north and west of the Maya, whose empire was centered on Guatemala, Belize and the Yucatan. The game had significant social and possibly even religious significance, as evidenced by the fact that the courts used for playing the game were often located in the sacred districts of towns throughout the region. The rules were slightly different depending on the town, culture and time period but there are consistent elements to this game.

The first is that the court is rectangular in nature, usually with high walls. At Chichen Itza, a Mayan-Toltec city in what is now the Yucatan, sits one of the largest courts ever found. Playing within the confines of the, the objective was to put the rubber ball through a hoop, which was made of stone and placed vertically at height. At Chichen Itza, the height was 8m, which was unusually high (Cartwright, 2013). The trick to the game is that players were not allowed to use their hands, something that is a feature of the game today. They were compelled to only use their knees, hands, elbows, shoulders, thighs and other body parts, which makes those 8m hoop especially impressive. The ball was heavy, too, weighing anywhere from 500g to 3.5kg, and they would range in size as well (Cartwright, 2013).

The game was played with two teams, usually of only two or three men. Depending on the culture and time, the game was played either by amateurs or professions, and among the former group were often prisoners of war. The winning team would usually receive trophies commemorating this victory. These were of religious significance, since the individuals were often buried with their trophies, indicating that the trophies can some significance with the underworld. The losers were frequently sacrificed to the gods and there are carvings and paintings that depict the beheadings of members of the losing team. There were even severed heads on display at the courts to drive the point home. The Maya sometimes made the practice of tying up the losers into balls themselves and rolling them down flights of steps as punishment (Cartwright, 2013).

The uniforms that the players wore reflected the physical nature of the game. Because the players were expected to direct these heavy balls with different parts of their bodies, they would typically wear thick leather on parts like hips or elbows that were going to be used to direct the ball. Some players would have used gloves as well, and knee pads, as part of their protection. Players also often wore helmets to protect them from the ball, though the helmets would not help keep their heads attached to their bodies if they happened to lose the game.

The game was ritualistic in nature, as the human sacrifice at the end would seem to confirm. The game is also believed to have been used to resolve disputes -- it was not simply a game for mass public entertainment, but it had a specific social and political purpose. The loser did not necessarily die if the game was being played for political reasons, such as to settle a boundary dispute or to serve as a proxy for a broader, open conflict. While it is not entirely confirmed about this with the Maya version of the game, the similarities between the Maya game and its mythology and the game elsewhere in Mesoamerica would lead one to conclude that since it was used to settle disputes and mediate relationships there, it stands to reason that was one of its roles in Mayan political and social culture as well (Tokovinine, 2002).