"The ball game was literally a matter of life and death for ancient Mesoamericans." This sentence is true of the game Pokatok, played by the ancient Mayans. I remember seeing this game (stop at 3:40) in the DreamWorks film The Road to Eldorado. While it presented it in a comical and not all together true way, it still remained to intrigue me. I remember later watching a Mayan documentary while in a Spanish class and became further interested in the the Mayans culture and customs. Because of this small amount of information I had of them, it was enough to whet my appetite so I decided to expand it and learn about their popular ballgame: Pokatok.
The game was played in a court varying in size but usually being close to the size of a football field. Nearly every major city had a ballgame court (the courts weren't soley used for ballgames, but that was their main purpose). The court was also seen as a sign of the city's wealth and power. I found that the game was best described here. Bacially you wanted to hit a rubber ball by using anything but your hands and feet (this varies in areas but was most common in my reading) into the ring. This was near impossible and games usually ended after the feat. Points were instead mainly gained through the hitting of backboards or areas around the ring.
The results of the game is where it gets hazy. The Mayan culture strongly believed in human sacrifice for many different customs and practices and becomes evident in the game. In some cases it was believed that the captain of the winning team would present himself to the captain of the losing team to be decapitated by him (it was seen as an honor as he would make it straight to heaven instead of having to brave the afterlife), in other cases, the losing team members were to be sacrificed as a gift to the gods.
As crazy as these ideas and practices may seem to us, this was a normal day to day occurence for the Mayans, they were very involved in human sacrifice and it was natural for them. While I don't know if it made the killing of people less painful, it was still a part of life and something most of them abided by from what I could see. From seeing all their customs, it makes me wonder about the way they were taught these things. The coldness and violence of it all makes me feel like it would be a father tongue tradition but from the way they perceived it I suppose it would be almost mother tongue. It was something taught and expected from generation to generation as the Mayans thrived and seen as an honor to be sacrificed. It was also a combination of the sophic and mantic as their intentions were religious as well as rational to them: if I sacrifice this noble man, the gods will bless us with a better crop year. It made sense to them as well as being something that was taught to them through religion.
As the years have gone by and this ancient Mayan culture was brought to an end, the preserving of their game, and other customs, have been brought to the present and practiced as means of fun as well as means of remembering traditions of old. On this website it shows different techniques and new (more safe) ways to reinact this ancient game.
All in all it was interesting to see the way that folk knowledge has progressed and is exchanged and perceived in different cultures. And also the ways that it has been changed because of the way that ideas are seen differently in todays cultures.
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One of the things I find really interesting about the human population is our somewhat innate desire to recreate or redo something already done. From a religious standpoint, I'm sure this comes from our actual desire to repent and return to God, but that's not related directly to what I want to say. Have you ever noticed how fashions seem to keep coming back? I came back from my mission and suddenly paisley ties became a huge trend among men. I don't really remember seeing any paisley ties before, but I am certain that paisley ties first came out in the 1980's (although the design actually precedes the ties for hundreds of years). Also, the iPad seems like just a glorified iPod or iKnowledgeinstitutionforyourfinger. We are always wanting to improve upon what we already have done. Where does THAT desire come from?
ReplyDeleteiKnowledgeinstitutionforyourfinger...nice. I like.
ReplyDeleteSo...I think that pokatok is distinctly father tongue. For one (yes, it's ethnocentric), I can't see a mother telling her child, "Don't forget to enjoy killing someone today!" whereas "Don't forget your lunch box!" seems more motherly. It cares for rather than drags down.
On the other hand, what is our equivalent? Football? How often does Mom teach a kid how to pass the ball? How often does Dad or do peers do this? I can see the enjoyment of pokatok being a mark of progression--little Billy is old enough to understand the mechanics of the game and mature enough to understand the religious reasons we kill the players; if we took him younger, his sensibilities would be too strong and we can't have that. Now Billy can be a man: "Go with daddy and enjoy the game...whatever that means."