“spirtually and passionately alive”
As Mexico is my current locale, I’m tracking all news Mexicano. Here’s a most interesting clip about ancient native sports. While the people of the indigenous community featured in this article were known to be more peaceful, this Mercury News piece explains how some communities plucked the hearts out of losing athletes. Yikes!
WHAT A PITY. The two boys, thrusting their hips, darting, reversing like whips, were obviously playing a ballgame. But they had no ball. Their movements mimicked the way an ancient game, similar to soccer, was played here on the ball court at Guachimontones.
Other Mexican archaeological sites have ball courts, but many of them have a hoop placed high on the walls. Some ancient wall paintings show that bats or arms could be used. At Guachimontones in Western Mexico, players competed on a long, narrow court between low walls without a hoop. They hit the ball, probably a stone covered with rubber, only with the hip. Male skeletons unearthed here show a high propensity for broken pelvises.
The Guachimontones ballgame was considerably tamer than elsewhere. The winners did not pluck out the heart of the losers, as the Maya did, nor did they play ball with a severed head. At least the evidence points to a more peace-loving culture.
Guachimontones is an unusual site in other ways. Its pyramids are round, a feature unique in the world except in this region. Archaeologists label this culture the Teuchitlan tradition for the town of the same name near Guachimontones. Its cultural and economic high points were probably reached 200-400 AD, though people lived here as early as 1000 BC, and people continued to live here afterward.
View the entire article by clicking here.
Popularity: 4% [?]
The ones that are crazy enough to want to change the world are the ones that actually do.
—
RSS feed
Email updates
Tweets