The Mexican Ball Game

History 3 Minutes

Much speculation has gone into discovering the origins of American football. Perhaps this was where the game originated…..in the 1st millenium B.C.? From “Ancient Inventions:”

“The most extraordinary sport of the ancient world was without doubt the sacred ball game of Central America and the southern United States. It was first played in about 1000 B.C. by the Olmecs, who lived along the Bay of Mexico, and by all the later great civilizations of the region.

From its very start, it was played by the most important members of society. The colossal Olmec heads — carved from basalt brought down from mountains 50 miles away and weighing up to 44 tons — show Olmec rulers wearing head coverings. A plausible explanation is that these are protective helmets (like those of modern football players) worn by the Olmecs when playing their sacred ball game.

Olmec Heads

The earliest ball courts were simple basins with earthen retaining walls, but by 1000 A.D., they had become far more elaborate. At Chichen Itza the parallel walls were 283 feet long, 100 feet apart and 27 feet high. In Aztec times, ball courts were shaped like a capital “I,” with temples at both ends and banks of seating along the sides. In the middle of the walls, which were usually 12 feet high, were set stone or wooden rings. The ball was a solid rubber sphere about 6 inches in diameter.

Detail from the 15th century Codex Magliabecciano, showing the Mexican ball game about to start. The rings, here shown outside the court, actually projected into it at right angles to the side walls.

To protect themselves against injuries from the heavy ball, the noble players (and a sprinkling of professionals) wore protective helmets, wide belts of hard wood and leather, hip pads, knee pads, and a single glove.

Representation of Protective Gear

After the ball was thrown into play, players had to pass it to their teammates using their hips, elbows, or legs, without letting it run into the other side’s end of the court, for this counted as a point against them. The excited crowd would bet on the outcome: according to a Spanish chronicler they would wager “gold, turquoises, slaves, rich mantles, even cornfields and houses.”

Star players were able to hit the ball up through the ring on the side of the court, thereby winning the game. The victorious side had the right to grab the clothes and jewelry of any spectators who couldn’t get away fast enough. That the game also had a religious significance is shown by the fact that omens were read from the movements of the ball and the nature of the victory.

Pre-Columbian art often depicts acts of decapitation as authors such as Christopher L. Moserhave pointed out. The practice is also known from the ball court game that was commonly played by all the Mesoamerican cultures prior to the arrival of the Spanish, from the Olmecs to the Aztecs. The game began to feature sacrificial elements when the Maya took it over from the Toltecs. Archaeologists had mostly dismissed these depictions as figurative, but recent evidence, including the discovery of a collection of decapitated human heads, has provided physical proof of its existence among Pre-Columbian cultures.

https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/decapitation-discovery-reveals-gruesome-practices-ancient-incas-003116

That the losing team may have paid the ultimate price for defeat is suggested by the sculptural reliefs found next to many ball courts, which show a ball player being decapitated as a sacrifice to the gods.

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Published by NebraskaFilly

Army veteran (1976-1979), retired with entirely too much time on my hands

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112 thoughts on “The Mexican Ball Game”

  1. Morning!
    interesting open!
    so many parallels to current football…pick the wrong side and you could lose your shirt! (if you’re a betting person…LOL)
    but I’m curious about the ball…did they make the rubber sphere?

    Liked by 2 people

  4. so they were there in the whitmer case…now they were there in 1/6 case…
    I’m starting to think the fib is bad…sarc

    Liked by 3 people

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  10. Good morning y’all! Had a warm day yesterday, almost 80°. Rain is back now though, just in time for a 3 day weekend. We get Good Friday off; state holiday. Lots of garden work to do.

    Liked by 2 people

  11. Well, NE just had another big avian flu outbreak. I worked at this plant briefly in 1970 – Wayne is where my son was born. The plant is only about 15 minutes’ drive from Wayne.

    “WAKEFIELD – A food processor with locations in Nebraska has detected avian flu in a flock of birds.

    According to Post-Holdings, a Michael Foods owned egg-laying flock in Wakefield tested positive for avian influenza. They say the facility houses approximately two million egg-laying hens, or approximately four percent of Post’s controlled supply.

    The highly contagious virus has spread since February, and millions of birds have been killed across the United States to limit the spread of the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the recent cases in birds do not present an immediate public health concern to humans.”

    http://waynedailynews.com/local-news/case-of-bird-flu-confirmed-at-michael-foods-in-wakefield/

    Liked by 1 person

  12. EXCERPT: “It’s a worst case scenario for the easily triggered snowflake employees at Twitter: Elon Musk has just offered to buy the entire company. And even in doing so, he hasn’t stopped trolling. Elon Musk has made a bold move by offering to purchase 100% of Twitter for around $43 billion.

    According to an updated 13D filing read that Musk offered “to acquire all of the outstanding Common Stock of the Issuer not owned by the Reporting Person for all cash consideration valuing the Common Stock at $54.20 per share (which values the company around $43 billion),” warning Twitter management this is his “high price” and “if the deal doesn’t work,” he would “reconsider my position as a shareholder.”

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/best-and-final-offer-elon-musk-offers-buy-twitter-5420-share

    Liked by 2 people

        1. I think he’s taking it over.

          I was reading a story about anheuser-busch and something like this happened.

          If you offer more for a stock and the board turns you down the people can sue and vote

          He can dump all his stock which will crash twitter stock and buy it out.

          Liked by 1 person

  13. EXCERPT: ““Today is a historic day where two governors are showing how to lead on border issues,” Abbot told a press conference where he denounced President Joe Biden’s easy migration rules and his plan to remove the Title 42 legal barrier on May 23.

    Abbott said:

    ‘Governor [Samuel] Garcia [Sepulveda] and I reached an agreement today … Governor Garcia has begun and will continue enhancing border security enforcement measures on the Nuevo Leon side of the border, both at ports of entry and alongside the Rio Grande River, to prevent illegal immigration … The Texas Department of Public Safety can return to its previous practice [and] The effect of this will be that the bridge from Nuevo Leone and Texas will return to normal, effective immediately. Right now. It will remain that way as long as the Nuevo Leon executes this historic agreement.’

    The deal reopens just one of several border crossings that have been clogged by the governor’s policy of stringent safety checks. Abbot says he has begun negotiations with other Mexican governors:

    ‘I look forward to working with all of them toward achieving results similar to what we are achieving today with Governor Garcia. Until, however, those agreements are reached with those states, the Texas Department of Public Safety will continue to thoroughly inspect vehicles entering into the United States from every Mexican state except Nuevo Leon.’

    https://www.breitbart.com/border/2022/04/14/texas-gov-claims-win-in-title-42-border-battle/

    Liked by 1 person

  14. EXCERPT: “Emmanuel Macron has claimed that those who criticise French lockdown policy are not living in the ‘real world’, while praising one veil-wearing Muslim woman as a feminist.

    Incumbent French President Emmanuel Macron has had a strange last 48 hours on the campaign trail, denouncing one voter as not living in the “real world” over her criticisms of the President’s lockdown policy, while praising another woman for being both a feminist who wears an Islamic veil, she said, voluntarily.

    Having initially thought to have been a shoo-in for reelection, Macron has suddenly found himself in tight contention with right-populist rival Marine Le Pen, the traditionally Eurosceptic and anti-mass migration politician polling within a few percentage points of the La République En Marche leader.

    According to a report by POLITICO, Macron ventured into enemy territory on Monday seemingly in the hopes of regaining lost ground, speaking face to face to voters in Denain, where Le Pen achieved 41 per cent of first preference votes.

    However, while the former socialist candidate may have entered the region with the hopes of winning hearts and minds, it seems like the opposite has been the result, with the President even going so far as to say that one voter was not living in the “real world” when she challenged the president’s lockdown policy.

    What’s more, Macron also publicly denied suggesting that unvaccinated French people were “under-citizens”, instead claiming that his comments regarding wanting to “piss off” the unvaccinated with harsh lockdown rules were said “in an affectionate way“.

    This seemed to go down like a led balloon with voters, with the woman Macron described as not living in the real world appearing to be particularly amused by the French President’s accusations. “I don’t live in the real world?” asked the woman, a dental assistant by profession. “…people will be laughing in front of their TV sets.”

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/04/13/macron-lockdown-critics-dont-live-in-the-real-world-but-islamic-veil-wearer-is-a-feminist/

    Liked by 1 person

  15. EXCERPT: “Frank James, the man arrested for Tuesday’s New York City subway shooting, is a black nationalist and outspoken racist who railed against whites, Jews, and Hispanics. A careful reader of the New York Times could be forgiven for overlooking that. In a nearly 2,000-word article on the attack, James’s race is not mentioned. The same is true for the coverage offered up by Reuters; the Washington Post only mentioned James’s race in relation to his condemnation of training programs for “low-income Black youths.”

    Media critics on the right say that the conspicuous omission of James’s race from these news reports illustrates a trend among prestige papers, which deemphasize or omit the race of non-white criminals while playing up the race of white offenders. But is it a real pattern?

    Yes. A Washington Free Beacon review of hundreds of articles published by major papers over a span of two years finds that papers downplay the race of non-white offenders, mentioning their race much later in articles than they do for white offenders. These papers are also three to four times more likely to mention an offender’s race at all if he is white, a disparity that grew in the wake of George Floyd’s death in 2020 and the protests that followed.

    The Free Beacon collected data on nearly 1,100 articles about homicides from six major papers, all written between 2019 and 2021. Those papers included the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, and Minneapolis’s Star-Tribune—representatives of each paper did not return requests for comment for this article. For each article, we collected the offender’s and victim’s name and race, and noted where in the article the offender’s race was mentioned, if at all.”

    https://freebeacon.com/media/yes-the-media-bury-the-race-of-murderers-if-theyre-not-white/

    Liked by 1 person

  16. EXCERPT: “Democratic senator Raphael Warnock asked a Georgia judge on Tuesday to seal his contentious child custody dispute from the public, arguing that because he is “currently running for reelection” his opponent could use the case to “gain some political advantage,” according to a court motion obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

    Warnock made the request in a joint motion with his ex-wife, Oulèye Ndoye, following renewed media attention on their divorce. Warnock and Ndoye said in the filing that there is an “overriding interest that is likely to prejudice the parties and their minor children if hearings relating to modification of custody is not closed.” The motion says Warnock is a “public figure serving in a political office” and “is currently running for reelection for said political office.”

    “[Warnock’s] opposition is utilizing the public records in order to gain some political advantage or gain,” said the filing, adding that their children could be “harmed by any unstable person who sympathizes” with his opponent.

    If the judge agrees to seal the records, it could allow Warnock to avoid a messy public domestic battle while he is facing one of the most competitive races of the midterm elections.

    Ndoye reopened the dispute in a February court filing, accusing Warnock of neglect of his children and failure to pay for childcare, leaving her “financially strapped.” Ndoye claimed Warnock refused to pay for childcare costs that she was forced to shoulder when he failed to show up for his custody days. She also said he “routinely neglects” to give her notice when he is traveling out of town during his visitation days, and instead has the children “picked up from school by friends and [leaves] them with various babysitters overnight” while he is away.”

    https://freebeacon.com/democrats/warnock-asks-court-to-seal-divorce-proceedings-cites-reelection-bid/

    Liked by 1 person

  18. on the radio this morning, I heard about a woman in NY who’s job is naming babies…can you believe that?
    she does full name analysis…she calls herself a trend watcher and all other kinds of bullshit. She charges $1,500 (BASELINE) for naming your child AND UP!!!!!
    and if that’s not outrageous enough guess what she made last year?
    $150,000!!!!!!!!!
    rich people will pay for anything!

    Liked by 1 person

  20. EXCERPT: “Tony Dungy, the first black coach ever to win a Super Bowl, might have escaped notice this week had he merely supported Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s “Responsible Fatherhood Initiative.” His real sin was to explain why.

    Dungy, a Christian father of eleven, recounted a conversation he had years back with the Rev. Abe Brown about Brown’s prison ministry. At Brown’s request, Dungy accompanied him to prison. Expecting to find hardened criminals, Dungy found instead “19- and 20- and 21-year-old kids who looked like my boys.” When Dungy asked what accounted for the young men’s incarceration, Brown told him, “It’s not socioeconomic. It’s not racial. It’s not education. It’s none of that. Ninety-five percent of these boys did not grow up with their dad.”

    Said Dungy, “That hit me.”

    Predictably, Dungy’s truth-telling stirred the woke beehive. “Dungy standing there cackling,” tweeted former ESPN commentator Keith Olbermann, “a fascist political prop.” “Fathers are extremely important, but yeah,” tweeted Jemele Hill, also formerly with ESPN, “that ain’t how this works. If a father is in the home and can’t find a job, then what?”

    Undaunted, Dungy fired back exactly as warranted. “2 days ago I spoke on behalf of a Florida bill that supports dads & families and it offended some people,” tweeted Dungy. “14 yrs ago Pres Obama said the same things almost verbatim. I’m assuming people were outraged at him too.” Added Dungy defiantly, “I am serving the Lord so I’ll keep supporting dads and families.”

    In the tweet, Dungy quoted Obama’s comments from 2008, underlining the words that confirmed the Rev. Brown’s thesis. “We know the statistics,” said Obama, “that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.”
    ———————
    This was a message the progressive left was no more eager to hear then than now. Chicago’s most prominent baby daddy, Jesse Jackson, let Obama know how unwelcome was his truth-telling. Three weeks after Father’s Day, Jackson was “overheard” talking to another black guest on a hot mic at the Fox News studio. The cynic suspects that Jackson wanted his message to be heard, and he knew that at Fox would someone think to leak it. If so, he got his way.

    Said Jackson, “See, Barack been, um, talking down to black people on this faith-based—I wanna cut his nuts out.” Here Jackson made a sharp slicing motion with his hands and continued, “Barack—he’s talking down to black people—telling n*****s how to behave.” (Jackson, I should clarify, did not speak in asterisks.) Jackson later apologized but without even feigning sincerity. Obama seems to have gotten the message. From that day forward, Jackson’s weary, self-destructive wokism carried the day as it had since he assumed leadership of the flailing civil rights movement forty years prior. Obama never spoke meaningfully about fatherhood again.
    ———————–
    This is what Obama wrought. Dungy peeled back the first layer of the onion. Someone needs to keep peeling.”

    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/04/unapologetic_tony_dungy_smokes_out_obamas_betrayal_of_black_america.html

    Like

  23. I hate to consider it but…..this guy’s got a point about Oz….

    EXCERPT: “Meanwhile, McCormick, a former hedge fund manager at Bridgewater, “loved doing business with China.” Not only did he live there for more than 12 years, “Bridgewater has been managing Chinese state money since 1993, including Beijing’s sovereign wealth fund. In short, Bridgewater is in bed with the Chinese Communist Party.” As late as 2021, McCormick was helping augment China’s wealth.

    It’s not just China, though, says Ryun:

    “Beyond China, McCormick is your typical open borders, pro-amnesty, Chamber of Commerce type of Republican. He’s also the typical neocon who hasn’t seen a war he doesn’t like. Even worse, he’s bought into the lie of January 6. When asked about it by Bloomberg weeks after the incident, in the context of whether the GOP should jettison Trumpism, McCormick replied, “We shouldn’t embrace the divisiveness of the last four years” of which “Trump bears a great responsibility.” Evidently, McCormick missed the divisiveness caused by the Russian collusion hoax, Ukrainian quid pro quo, and a host of other nonstop attacks by administrative state actors and corporate propagandists.

    Throw on top of the crap cake that is McCormick the icing of his new wife, globalist Dina Powell, and you’re telling me Trump isn’t going to endorse his opponent? Come on. Of course Trump is going to endorse Oz.”

    Ryun acknowledges that Oz will never be a Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley. Still, he’ll be a pretty good Republican and, if Trump gets back into the White House in 2024, he’ll support Trump all the way.

    In other words, according to Ned Ryun, both Pennsylvania Republican senatorial candidates are far from perfect. Trump, intelligently, is refusing to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. He’s therefore chosen to endorse a loyal friend who leans left on social issues but is not in bed with China, and who doesn’t believe in amnesty or dragging America into foreign wars that don’t benefit her.

    I’m not saying you must agree with Ryun’s take on the matter. However, it’s certainly worth considering if you were thinking about turning your back on Trump because he endorsed Mehmet Oz, M.D.”

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/maybe_donald_trump_wasnt_crazy_to_endorse_dr_oz.html

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I saw this and was thinking about it too.
      many say given 2 bad choices not to endorse either would be better; however, that could ultimately help the globalist who loves shyna…so yeah, maybe I get it…

      Liked by 1 person

  24. so what hasn’t this administration lied about? Major bit 8 people…not just one as psucky said.
    FTA
    “White House press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged just one biting incident at a briefing on March 9, 2021, saying that one day earlier ‘the first family’s younger dog, Major, was surprised by an unfamiliar person and reacted in a way that resulted in a minor injury to the individual,’” the Post said.

    But records released to Judicial Watch show that was the eighth and final bite in as many days. And one agent reportedly said: “NO I didn’t surprise the dog doing my job by being at [redacted] as the press secretary just said! Now I’m pissed.”

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/secret-service-agents-were-furious-over-white-house-downplaying-first-dog-bites-report

    Liked by 1 person

  25. Feinstein can’t function any more
    FTA

    Dianne Feinstein is “rapidly deteriorating,” her colleagues say (anonymously). Despite evidently being unable to remember who she’s talking to, she’s set to remain in office through 2024. https://t.co/EoGuguSyLi pic.twitter.com/4RbBlwCUvZ

    — Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) April 14, 2022

    “I have worked with her for a long time and long enough to know what she was like just a few years ago: always in command, always in charge, on top of the details, basically couldn’t resist a conversation where she was driving some bill or some idea. All of that is gone,” one congressperson said. “She was an intellectual and political force not that long ago, and that’s why my encounter with her was so jarring — because there was just no trace of that.”

    According to her co-workers, Feinstein’s memory lapses are not constant and differ from day to day. She held her own during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson but evidently could not recognize some of her colleagues on other days, according to reports.

    Dianne Feinstein (D) Age 88 is the perfect example of why we need term limits! Who Agrees?

    — It’s Common Sense! (@TimeToVoteRed) April 14, 2022

    Feinstein adamantly denied the allegations about her mental acuity and claims that she is still performing her duties as required.

    https://www.bizpacreview.com/2022/04/14/dem-lawmakers-staffers-reportedly-fret-over-dianne-feinsteins-rapidly-deteriorating-mental-acuity-1225835/

    Liked by 2 people

  28. Rodney found this one so I got to bring it to you

    Liked by 2 people

  42. LOL

    Liked by 2 people

  43. OMG there were SOOOOOO many rabbits in the park. I think I just chased the easter bunny.
    Puppy was very VERY happy. And let everyone know about it

    Liked by 2 people

      1. She was. The rabbit’s were like ugh you again. One just started eating the clover.
        She was not pleased at all. LOL

        I got a work out that’s for sure

        Liked by 1 person

  45. Elon Musk on Purchasing Twitter: “This is not a Way to Make Money – To Have a Public Platform that Is Maximally Trusted and Inclusive Is Important to Future of Civilization”

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/elon-musk-purchasing-twitter-not-way-make-money-public-platform-maximally-trusted-inclusive-important-future-civilization/

    What great timing!
    Elon Musk was scheduled to give a TED talk today, which happens to be the same day Elon announced his intentions of buying far-left social media giant Twitter. The interview turned quickly to Elon’s $43 billion offer to buy Twitter.

    Elon Musk described his intentions in purchasing Twitter.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. have you read Some Dude’s article on twitter? he lays it out perfectly that the costs for “running” twitter are astronomical and they make no $$ basically…so it can’t operate unless the u.s. intelligence community is the backbone…and they don’t want musk revealing that…

      Liked by 2 people

  47. Of course

    Pfizer to seek COVID booster for healthy 5- to 11-year-olds
    Pfizer says new data shows healthy elementary schoolers could benefit from another kid-sized shot.

    They are healthy so you can’t have that

    Liked by 2 people

  48. here’s a reply to the twitter story by some dude i posted above…

    USAFirst!
    April 14, 2022 5:41 pm

    This is all making sense.

    Big Gov is controlling and censoring everything on these platforms.

    Big Gov is underwriting Discus, Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies and in return they allow the “ Intelligence community “ to vacuum up all of the details on every customer and to censor anything that is a threat to Big Gov.

    Big Gov uses taxpayer money to subsidize and build the systems needed for this.

    The social media companies win because there overhead is extremely low so they make billions in profit, the intelligence community wins because they get to control the message.

    Looks like Elon has backed them in a corner.

    Liked by 2 people

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