World's Oldest Team Sport Reviving Indigenous Maya Culture

October 15, 2021 

Tomorrow, the First Southeast Mexican Cup of the Ancestral Sport of Pelota Maya will take place in the Yucatán community of Umán. Teams from Yucatán, Campeche, Chiapas and Quintana Roo will participate in a celebration of one of the world’s oldest known team sports.

The Mesoamerican Juego de pelota maya - literally Maya ballgame - is just one term (Pok ta’Pok and Tlachtli are others) for the game among the different groups in different countries that play it. The Maya are an indigenous people of Mexico and Central America who have continuously inhabited the lands comprising modern-day Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco and Chiapas in Mexico and southward through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. More than six million Maya currently carry on the traditions of their ancestors.

The sport has had different iterations over the centuries, and a modern version of the game, ulama, is still played in several communities. Traditionally, it was played on big stone courts, with perhaps the best-known surviving game court at the Mayan ruins of Chichén Itzá in Yucatán. It consists of two teams (men and women), a rubber ball and was played largely using the hips. The specifics of the game as it was played in ancient societies remain largely unknown. 

More than just an athletic event, it  was a sacred one, with rituals speaking to the stars and the 'victory of the sun over the night.' Over the course of the game, a 'conflict of the forces of darkness and light is described and enacted' with a multitude of meanings to different Maya peoples; it is believed to have stood in for acts of warfare, to have functioned as a ritualistic religious ceremony and to simply be a good way to pass the time.

Largely erased by Spanish conquistadors, the sport is becoming an increasingly important part of reviving indigenous cultural practices. In current times, it is played based on passed-down culture and the support of researchers who have attempted to understand the rules from architectural remains. 

According to Mexico News Daily, Mesoamerican groups have been "salvaging this essential piece of Mayan society from the annals and breathing life into it once more; many hope that it will spread across the region and gain in popularity to rival sports such as soccer and baseball."

In Umán, one of the 106 municipalities in the Mexican state of Yucatán, the government established a free school in 2019 for Maya youth to learn the game of their culture. “We are betting on the new generations practicing this sport that our ancestors left as a legacy,” said municipal official José Manuel Ruiz Garrido.

October's tournament is being seen as an opportunity for indigenous peoples to pull the past into the future. The president of the Asociación de Juegos y Deportes Autóctonos y Tradicionales, Professor José Manrique Esquivel, stated that this month's matches will also serve as a selection phase to determine which players will participate in the IV World Poktapok Cup to be held December 2 to 4. He also leads on promoting other traditional games with Maya backgrounds, including Tinjoroch, Tirahule and Imbomba.

One of the pending requests of the traditional games clubs that exist across the Yucatan is that there are also sports spaces to practice the Maya ball game, just as there are already courts to practice soccer, basketball, and other modern sports. 

Sources: Mexico News Daily, Yucatan Times