By Rainer Sousa
In several nations of the world, sport occupies a very privileged place among the members of a certain culture. This level of importance comes to integrate that select group of manifestations that explain the cultural identity of a collectivity. For Americans, American football is one of those important manifestations capable of paralyzing thousands of people. However, few know the origins of this much appreciated activity in the USA.
About more than three thousand years ago, some civilizations in Central and North America invented a game that varied according to the region and period in which it was played. For the Aztecs, the sport was called “tlachtli”, while the Mayans defined it as “pok-ta-pok”. In this pre-Columbian game, two teams of seven players were organized that had to hit a small concrete circle affixed to two ends of the field with a heavy rubber ball.
During the game, participants could not use their feet, hands or head. To drive the ball to the desired goal, it was only allowed to make use of the knees, hips and elbows. As the rubber ball was heavy and the competition was very fierce, players used a series of tricks that served to protect the most sensitive parts of the body. Through these rules, the game started under the watchful eyes of several spectators.
However, moving away from the sporting sense, this type of competition was endowed with a strong religious orientation to the Mayan culture. According to the mythology of this people, it was in a game of “pok-ta-pok” that the gods gave rise to the universe. In this way, we have to point out that the Mayans understood that this practice had a religious-ritualistic meaning quite different from the one that sports competitions gain today.
According to some research, there are strong indications about the sacrifice of a portion of the participants in the game. What remains unclear is whether the winning or losing team should suffer the rebate. Several anthropologists cannot agree on whether the winners lived for the prestige they achieved or whether the losers could not be sacrificed, as they could not please the gods.
Another point that discards the sporting function of this game is the composition of elements and the format of the arena used for the “pok-ta-pok”. Most of the courts intended for the game were large and the arches were usually placed at a distance of 10 meters from the ground. Taking into account the short stature of pre-Columbian people, we can see that the gameplay was not of great importance. Undoubtedly, the meaning of the game was not the same one that excites North American fans today.