Ball Game Mesoamerican
The ball game is a sports ritual that has been practiced for over 3000 years by the peoples Columbian of Mesoamerica , which is also known under the names of pelota and ulama (name derived from the Nahuatl , in Yucatec Maya , or in Nahuatl , or in Zapotec.
Appeared during the second millennium BC the ball game reached its peak in the Mayans of 900 in 1200. He practiced with a small ball of rubber between two teams (1 to 12 players) on land generally H-shaped, tlachtli also appointed by the Aztecs. The largest of these is now one short of Chichen Itza : seventy feet by one hundred and sixty eight. The iconography and some stories have players returning the ball to hit the hip or knee, refraining from touching with the hands and feet. Other illustrations show players with sticks. There are few historical descriptions of specific rules of this game that was part of a ritual which was sometimes accompanied by sacrifices. The game was later taken over by the Aztecs. This is the version that discovered the conquistadors from Spain.
Variants of the sport is still practiced today in northwestern Mexico .
Summary |
Milestones geographical and chronological
It is mainly in the area of the Mayan civilization found in playgrounds bullet: that is, south-eastern Mexico (primarily the Yucatan , but also in the states of Quintana Roo , Campeche , Tabasco and Chiapas ) to Honduras , via Belize , the Guatemala and El Salvador. They are found even in the Mesoamerican Occidente, including Tingambato in Michoacan. Sites with the largest number of land located in Veracruz (Mexico): Cantona has twenty-four and El Tajin seventeen .
The first track of the ball game comes from figurines found in a tomb at El Openo ( Michoacn , Mexico ), dating from ancient Preclassic (1500 BC.). No trace of land has yet been discovered in this region before 600 BC. BC The oldest known land belongs to the site of La Venta ( Tabasco , Mexico) and date from about 1000 BCE. The largest is that of Chichen Itza (Yucatan, Mexico) with 146 meters long by 36 wide. Construction land and the practice of ball games were halted by the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century.
Rules of the ball game
Although there was no one way to practice the game ball in different cultural areas and periods of Mesoamerica, there are however a number of common rules.
First, it was between two teams, composed of a set number of players (two to ten players each) .
The players had to return a ball scalable rubber (material sacred to the Mayans). They could use it for knees, elbows, hips or buttocks, avoiding touching your hands or feet. Because the ball (called "olli" ulli "," Olin "," Ulle "," Hule " - "Ollin" means "movement" in Nahuatl - and "kik" in Mayan - liquid seminal) was full, it weighed up more than 3 kg, so the players wore protections to mitigate violence Shots: elbow, knee, yoke (leather belt) and sometimes a helmet. As in volleyball , the aim was to return the ball into the opponent without it hits the ground. The ball game was also played at night with a flaming ball , the party could also stop when a player accomplished the feat (extremely rare) to pass the ball in the ring of the other side .
When he was not a simple training, priests and kings and important people watched the game from the top of buildings around the field.
Value ritual
This section While the ball game was played by everyone: some important cities like Chichen Itza, had up to thirteen sites and are known by the Codex Mendoza as the Aztec emperor Moctezuma II required the cities of the Gulf Coast Mexico paying an annual tribute of 16,000 rubber balls, which proves that the game was played regularly by a large proportion of the population.
But when it was practiced as a sport, the ball game was in fact so simple that a drive that was his real reason for being: the religious ceremonies.
Indeed, the ball game was primarily a ritual symbolizing the Mesoamerican cosmogony: the trajectory of the bullet matched the sun's path that should not stop; the stone rings as targets, often arranged east and west, representing the east and the Ponant. The field, he represented the terrestrial platform separating the Upper World (heaven) of the underworld (similar to the Underworld), where man must fight against the forces of darkness to join with the sun, the Upper World (see below the myth told in the Popol Vuh ). In general, the practice of the ceremonial ball game was used to reveal the will of the gods to decide political debates and even conflicts (land of the ball game also served as a social forum), and in case of problem (agriculture in particular), provide clues to order divinatory priests who followed the game closely to read the signs.
In addition, the ceremonies ended by the systematic decapitation of the losing team or at least its head (as such we understand why they were prisoners of war who were involved most often in this ritual practice): This sacrifice was clearly to invoke the aid of the gods, the bloodshed may furthermore be linked to fertilization of the land. There was even a structure, tzompantli (or altar of skulls), to collect the offerings of severed heads, exposed over long wooden ties.
According to some historians, are the winners of the game that were sacrificed to the gods, since this act was a supreme honor.
Original Myth in the Popol Vuh
The Popol Vuh , the sacred text of the Quiche Maya myth tells the following:
The twins and Hunhunahp Vucub Hunahp, invited to play ball with the Lords of the Underworld, are killed as a result of many trials. Subsequently, the head of Hunhunahp, suspended from a calabash, the benefit of disobedience Xquic, daughter of one of the lords who defied the ban from approaching the tree, to spit in his hand. Xquic then falls pregnant and fled to Earth to escape retribution from his fellows. She will give birth to twins and Hunahp Xbalanque.
The latter, having recovered the equipment of their father and their uncle, began to play ball. The lords of Xibalba then also make them descend into the Underworld, but the twins manage to outsmart the traps set by their opponents, until Hunahp happen decapitated by a bat. The Lords decided to use his head as a bullet but Xbalanque arrives by trickery, to replace it with a rabbit and to resurrect his brother. The twins are finally victorious and kill the lords of darkness. They also resurrected their father and uncle, and ascend to heaven to become one of the Sun and the other the Moon.
Notes
References
- See Ulama: The Perpetuation in Mexico of the Pre-Spanish Ball Game Ullamaliztli Ted Leyenaar JJ, J. Brill ed., 1978
- Coe and Van Stone 2001 , p. 66.
- term found in various dictionaries of Yucatec Maya, the Diccionario de Motul and the Diccionario de San Francisco, cited in: Barrera Vsquez, Alfredo (ed.), Diccionario Maya Maya-espaol, espaol-maya (2nd ed. ), Editorial Porrua, 1991, p. 663. Frans Blom in The Maya Ball Game 'Pok-ta-pok' tlachtli Called By The Aztecs (1932) uses "pok-ta-pok," a form corrupted or incorrect, which, though often cited, is attested nowhere elsewhere
- a and b Duverger 1978 , p.44.
- Aguilar-Moreno 2007 , p.224.
- See the story of Fray Diego Durn in 1570 in Historia de las Indias de Nueva Espana e Islas de Tierra Firme, Porrua, 1967
- See pages 252-253 in Encyclopedia of World Sport from Ancient Times to the Present, Oxford University Press, 1999
- Coe and Koontz 2002 , p. 138.
- Toby Evans 2008 , p. 155.
- There is a wide variety of spellings, according to columnist being referred to, even if it is manifestly the same term.
- Taladoire 1981 , p. 41.
- Taladoire 1981 , p. 41.
- Taladoire 1981 , p. 60.
Bibliography
- (In) Manuel Aguilar-Moreno , Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, Oxford University Press, 2007, 464 p. ( ISBN 0195330838 ) Related articles
- Maya civilization
- Aztecs
- Archaeological sites with a playground ball: Chichen Itza , Coba , Copn , El Tajin , Monte Alban , Palenque , Piedras Negras , Teotihuacan , Tikal , Tula , Uxmal , Yaxchilan , Xochicalco.
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