Tracing the Ancient Origins of Balls and Ballgames

Mesoamerican Ballgames

The origins of balls and ballgames can be traced back to over 3,000 years when the Olmec who were known as the rubber people created Mesoamerica’s first civilization and left a rich cultural heritage to later groups, from the Maya to the Aztec. The oldest American ball was pulled from an El Manati, Mexico spring in 1992 and is more than 3,000 years old, it still had the smell of latex. Over 1,300 ballcourts have be excavated in Central American. Most of the courts are structured in the shape of an “I” and vary in length and width.  Early courts such as the ball court at Copan in Honduras did not have vertical rings as seen in the great ball court in Chichen Itza. The game also evolved from a game to invade the opponents goal line to a later version that also included striking the ball through a stone ring mounted vertically which when accomplished ended the game in victory.

The Rubber-Ball

Latex was first harvested from the native flora, the water was then evaporated hastened by fire and adding herbs that contained sulfur that volcanized the rubber. Balls varied in size depending on the type of contest. Some balls were the size of a tenpin bowling ball, while others were smaller if they needed to fit through the vertical stone ring. The games were played throughout central America, and where the plant life did not yield latex, balls were imported. In Central Mexico, tribute exacted by Montezuma from the lowland tribes included some 16,000 such ball each year.  It is interesting to note that the use of rubber in balls did not appear in Europe until the 1850’s when gutta percha was used to make golf balls.

The Ritual Game

The Mayan’s named this game Pok-ta-Pok, later to be named ullamaliztli by the Aztec’s. Still today a version of the game is played by ranchers in Mexico and is called Ulama.   The game of Pok-ta-Pok is often associated with the ritual beheading of captured apposing Mayan Kings. This after a game had been played with the captured King preordained to be on the losing side. These ritual beheadings were rare, as it was also said that the loosing team also lost their heads.  If this was a common practice, there would not be many ball players left over a short period of time. With 1,300 courts having been excavated, it is clear that the games were played for enjoyment and competition where much wagering often took place.

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Chinese Cuju, Ancient Football 2300 BC

Cuju is an ancient form of football where cu means kick and ju means ball or together kickball. There are a number of forms of the game, the most common was keeping the ball off the ground by kicking, a form of ball jugging, there was also a team game that had a goal.  FIFA has declared Cuju to be the ancient origin of football. These games date back 2,300 years with balls having an outside layer of leather that was stuffed with feathers.

 

Japanese Kemari 

The earliest writings on kamari are from the twelfth century. They allege the game, like so much of Japanese culture, came from China.  That allegation has been accepted by most works on kemari to this day, but the style of play, Chinese kemari (cuju) is different from the Japanese version of the game and a different ball is used. The ball, was made of deerskin, was hollow. These light balls were so delicate that they were liable to collapse if kicked too hard. The balls were coated with albumen (egg white) and then coated with an additional coat of face power mixed with glue. The white or yellow balls were sometimes said tosymbolize not only the sun and moon but also the principles of yin and yang. Other items of equipment included poles used to retrieve balls caught in trees, net to keep balls off roofs, and blinds to block the rays of the setting sun.  It was apparently the custom in the tenth century to locate kemari courts among trees that have grown naturally. In the eleventh century, however, trees were purposely planted for use in kemari.  Four different kinds of trees were considered appropriate: cherry, willow, maple, and pine. Each tree was assigned a corner of the court.  Volleying the ball up into the tree branches created irregular ball flight adding difficulty to the play. Two teams of eight players were posted among the four trees, in one form of the game, volleys could be limited to a set number of 120, 300, 360, 700, and 1000. This form of play was called marikai (ball meets). The ball was kicked with the right foot, often several times in succession, before it was passed to another player. The object was to keep the ball in the air for as many kicks as possible. Played in this way there were no winner or losers. Another competitive form of play was called shobu mari. Here two teams of eight players each performed a preset number of trials, and the team with the most kicks in a single trial was the winner.

Ball Play in the Odyssey

The first written account of ball play in western literature is written by Homer in the Odyssey dating back between c. 725 BC.  Homer’s epic story that depicted the trials of Odysseus was written 400 years after the Trojan Wars. There is little evidence to indicate balls and ball play took place during the time of the Trojan wars.  However, in the Odyssey, after Odysseus sails from Ogygia, his raft is wrecked by a storm, and he is washed up on Scheria.  Meanwhile, the goddess Athena, who sneaks into the palace, disguises herself as a sea captain’s daughter and instructs princess Nausicaa, the daughter of King Alkinoos in her sleep to go to seashore to wash cloths.  The next morning, Nausicaa and her maids go to the seashore, and, after washing the cloths, they start to play a ball game on the beach with laughs, giggles, and shouts. Odysseus, who was exhausted from adventure and was sleeping nearby, is awakened by the shouts. He covers his nakedness with thick leaves and ask for help from the team.  Upon seeing the unkept Odysseus in this state, the maids run away, but Nausicaa, encouraged by Athena, stands her ground and talks to him…

 

 Fireball, from Sacred to Secular in North and Central America

In the pre-history of mankind, we find ball games being played as a drama was acted, not as a game at all but as a ceremonial.  So far from being a natural form of recreation, first crudely then skillfully indulged, the ball game of ancient society was an artificial elaboration of certain religious beliefs current in that society. In ancient societies, the bat, or racket or stick in the game had a double meaning, it could be an emblematic war-shield, or magic wand, or figure of the Earth Godness, as well as an instrument of play. We can see that the teams and the game itself meant a number of things, each more irrational than the other, and all of them utterly contrary to what we should expect them to mean it the ball game had grown spontaneously of man’s inventive leisure.  The story of the ball game reveals the exceeding slow transformation of the formal and the sacrosanct into the secular and the human.  Man over time learned to play the ball game for the sac of it. (Massingham, H.J., 1929)

The indigenous people of North and Central America have long played a game of fireball for sport and ceremonial purposes. In North America for example, the game has been observed being played as late as July of 1986 on the Tuscarora Indian Reservation near Niagara Falls, N.Y. In this form of the game, the ball is prepared by wrapping it in an extensive amount of cloth, tying it with cords, and binding it with soft wire mess to hold it together. After all the wrappings, the ball, which is the size of a soccer ball, was placed in flammable fluid until thoroughly soaked. The game is played like soccer at night and last about 20 minutes the time it takes ball to consume itself. The team having the most goals at that time is declared the winner. (Oxendine, J.B., ?)

In Central America, a modern version of the ancient Mayan fire ball game is still played in the Michoacan of Veracruz, Mexico. The game is called ‘Purepecha’ ball and there are two versions, the first with teams of five a-side, players using hand hewed sticks to play a game similar to field hockey. The ball for this version has a core of rubber and is wrapped with stripes of cloth, then covered with a wide tape. The ball is finished by tying a woven partner of cords in loops to enclose the inner material, thus creating a round ball.

The court is approximately 100 m by 30 m, ancient courts had stone walls to keep the ball in play. The second modern version of the game is more ceremonial or ritual in nature. Here the game is played at night with a wooden ball that has been soaked in a flammable liquid. The game symbolizes the movement of the sun in the sky with the ball representing an equilibrium in the universe between good and evil, evil is the darkness or the underworld or death and the flaming ball, the sun, the giver of life.

Mayan Fireball

Ulama

The modern game of Ulama is played in Northwestern Mexico in the state of Sinaloa and is a direct descendent of the ancient Mayan game of Pak-ta Pak.    As late as 1990 at the Fourth Cultural Festival in Culiacan, Sinaloa three versions of the game were demonstrated and played in competition.  Version 1.  Arm-Ulama is played on a court 100 m x 1.4 m called a taste. The players play mostly 3 against 3 and one can play low over the ground or jump high into the air.  Players wear knee protectors and always wrap their forearms near the elbow with cotton tape, 3 m long and 3 cm wide to soften the impact of 500gm rubber ball.

 

Version 2. Hip-Ulama, this version is played on a taste (court) 65m x 4m and the court has a center line across the middle. The outfit of a hip-ballplayers consist of a loincloth of deerskin held with a cotton belt. Players also wear a leather belt to keep the buttocks closed when playing low over the ground. This is an indispensable part of the outfit.

 

Version 3. Racket-Ulama is played with a wooden instrument called a ‘pola’ that function as a kind of racket or bat.

Scoring for all three version of the game is similar. In each game there is always a great possibility of fluctuation of the score; one side can lose all the points, rayas, if the other team in on the winning side and vise verse. There are several ‘phases’ during a match in which a team has a ‘dangerous’, ‘movable’ score and loosing appoint will cause it to return to zero. Those ‘dangerous’, ‘movable’ phases are called urre, meaning movement, a sign known in pre-Columbian Mexico.