The mother of all ballgames...

Shortly before noon, Moctezuma and Nezahualpilli make their solemn entrance, followed by renowned players, Cantonatl and Becam among them. Soon, the game starts, both kings running for the bouncing ball, trying their best to send it back to the opposite side. After a few exchanges, they return to the ‘royal box’ and leave it to the hips and forearms of their chosen players to decide the fate of the party. Slowly, Nezahaualpilli’s team gets the upper hand. They win a first raya, then a second. At the third raya, the third winning point, the omens will decide: the invaders will enter Tenochtitlan. An astounding jump from one of Nezahualpilli’s players sends the heavy ball out of range of the other team. The crowd cheers. Texcoco wins. Both kings stand aghast: the gods have decided: Cortés’ army will enter Mexico.

Pic 2: Moctezuma (L - detail from painting by Antontio Rodríguez) and Nezahualpilli (R - detail from Codex Ixtlilxochitl, folio 108)

The first known ballcourts were built during the Middle Preclassic (1500-300 BC), at Paso de la Amada, in Chiapas, then at Takalik Abaj, El Ujuxte, in Guatemala. Slowly, the game became more popular, and by the Late Preclassic (300 BC-250 AD), most Mesoamerican people were already playing: ballcourts are documented in the Maya area, in Veracruz, in Central and West Mexico. Strangely, no court has yet been documented for any Olmec site, yet the very name Olmec means the people from the land of rubber. Without rubber, no ball, no game! The ball, that weighs about 4 or 5 pounds, is made of solid rubber, and bounces very high. But, given its weight and size, it is very dangerous and it can wound, or even kill a player, if he makes a mistake or a wrong movement. Players can only strike the ball with their protected forearm (arm ulama), or the hips (hip ulama), without using hands or feet. They play almost naked, wearing only a leather loincloth, to protect their hips and buttocks, and sometimes a glove to cover their hand when they have to lean on the ground to catch a low ball.

Pic 4: Restored section of the ballcourt, Takalik Abaj

Despite its richness and diversity, this corpus would remain useless, if the game had not survived in a remote area of Mexico until today. In the state of Sinaloa, ulama remained alive. Even if there are no formal ballcourts, as in pre-Hispanic times, people still play, allowing us to understand how to play, and how to score. It proves easy to compare a player’s position with its pre-Hispanic counterpart. For instance, many pre-Hispanic ballplayers wore only one glove. Contemporary ballplayers always lean on the ground with the same hand, according to their position in the court. This proves the value of comparing ancient representations with modern. Similarly, understanding the scoring has always been problematic. But, from ethnographic data, we know that faults (such as not sending the ball back, or allowing it to go out of the court) are called rayas. The Spanish chroniclers use the same word. A raya means that, when a fault occurs, the losing team must play in a reduced area, indicated by a mark on the playing field. We know, then, that points are scored when the players let the ball out of the field, when they fail to send it back... Even if we must remain careful when using such ethnographic data, comparative analysis gives us a better understanding of the game, during its pre-Hispanic heyday.

Pic 6: Hip ball game (after Ted J. J. Leyenaar)

The game involved sending the heavy ball back and forth, with hips and buttocks, sometimes with the forearm, each team trying to send the ball out of reach of their opponents. Points were scored when a team failed to send the ball back, or let it fall on the ground. Other points, when a player struck the ball with a forbidden part of the body. Ethnological data indicate that the score of both teams varied simultaneously, as in tennis. For instance, a team could score two points, and then lose the third; then its score would go back to zero, while the other team would score one, and so forth. The scoring system could make the game last for hours, before one team scored the necessary points to win. The best players would obviously stand in the alley, while others helped them at both ends, whether open or enclosed. It seems that faults sometimes led to the part of the alley occupied by the offending team being reduced in size, crowding the players into the remaining space.

Pic 8: Ballcourt, Codex Borbonicus

If most cities boasted one or two courts, a few frantically built large numbers. Six courts have been registered at Tula, Chichen Itza has 13, El Tajin almost 20, and Cantona, 24! This does not correspond to any kind of Olympic games. More likely, each court belonged to some socio-political entity living in the city. It tied the game to a ruling family, or to a specific group, as documented at Chichen Itza, where several distinct entities were living together. Strangely, the huge metropolis of central Mexico, Teotihuacan, did not have a single ballcourt. It seems that the Teotihuacanos favoured another ballgame with sticks, that we know very little about. Ongoing excavations at the Citadel have disclosed what could be an old court abandoned before Teotihacan reached its heyday. But we still need further research to understand fully why Teotihuacan preferred another game to the already booming tlachtli. At all events, at the peak of Teotihuacan expansion, tlachtli seems to have dwindled, except in regions where the metropolis’ influence was minimal, as in West Mexico, central Veracruz, or Cantona.

Pic 10: The great ballcourt at Chichén Itzá

A game? This is the term coined by the Spanish chroniclers, in reference to medieval ballgames, such as pelota vasca, because they largely failed to grasp its roots, or its religious significance. This doesn’t mean that tlachtli wasn’t a physical activity, with its rules, and its special features. As mentioned already, the players had to train, maybe in smaller courts. And sometimes, as in minor sites in Oaxaca, warriors played to pass the time, as well as to build up their strength. But the game has a deep ritual and religious significance.

Pic 12: Tikal ballgame grafffiti

Obviously, its meaning must have changed through time and space. The game played by the Preclassic Maya, at Cerros or Pacbitún, in the deep tropical forest, differs from its counterpart at La Quemada, in the arid valleys of northwest Mexico. Even so, it is possible to establish some universal features, common to most courts. As mentioned above, ballcourts are generally located close to pyramids and palaces, at a lower level, as in Copan, Uxmal, Tonina or Tenochtitlan. The pyramids are the home of the gods and the ancestors; the king lives in the palace. The ballcourt stands for the doorway to the underworld, the world of death, darkness and rebirth. At Tenochtitlan and in other sites, the ballcourt is located west of the twin pyramid, in the direction of the setting sun.

Pic 14: The ‘I’-shaped ‘teotlachco’ in the sacred precinct at Tenochtitlan (L); drawing of the ballcourt at Chinkultic (R)

Finally, without tlachtli, Cantona or Bekham would not have been the ballplayers we know today.

Sources:-
1) RUBBER - from the rubber tree! (Castilla elástica) - see pic 16.
2) Pictures - all courtesy Eric Taladoire, except -
• Pic 1: image scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro facsimile edition of the Florentine Codex, Madrid, 1994
• Pix 2l, 3, 10: photos by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Pic 2r: Codex Ixtlilxochitl image scanned from our copy of the facsimile edition published by ADEVA, Graz, Austria, 1976
• Pic 4: from Wikipedia
• Pic 8: image from the Codex Borbonicus (original in the Bibliotheque de l’Assembée Nationale, Paris); scanned with permission from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1974
• Pic 16r: image (detail) scanned from The Aztecs: People of the Sun by Alfonso Caso, University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.

Pic 16: Gathering ‘hule’ (rubber) (L); ballgame player - illustration by Miguel Covarrubias based on the Codex Maglabecchiano