Mayan Ball Game

The Maya used a solid rubber ball made from the latex of the rubber tree (Castilla elastica), which was indigenous to Central America. The latex can be made into rubber by heating. This rubber was quite startling to the sixteenth century Spaniards. Europeans of the time had no similar ball that could bounce for their sports. Although no rubber balls have been recovered from ancient Maya sites, three bowls from the sacred cenote at Chichen Itza contain a mixture of rubber, copal, jade, and shell that had been burned as an offering before the vessels were thrown into the cenote. Somewhat deformed from centuries in the ground, an actual Olmec rubber ball from El Manatí, Veracruz, Mexico, was preserved because of its waterlogged setting . The balls evidently varied in size up to 30 centimeters (12 inches) in diameter and were solid.

The Maya story of creation as told in the Popol Vuh involved ball playing hero twins who, through selfsacrifice and cleverness, defeated the gods of evil and prepared the world for the birth of the Sun, the dawning of the ancients’ universe. When rulers took the throne in the seventh century A.D. at the beautiful Maya city of Palenque, they assumed the title of “ballplayer,” just like the hero twin gods they were believed to embody. And when the game was played, creation was reenacted: decapitation of the losers paralleled the sacrifice of the creator gods in the Underworld ball game; the arching ball signified the movement of the Sun. The game had agricultural significance, too: central Mexican kings were said to play the rain god for bountiful crops. Momentous matters of state alliances, border disputes, and ruler legitimization rituals were decided on the sacred ball court.

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