The Aztec Ballgame where the Losers were Sacrificed | Simple History | A History Teacher Reacts

hey youtube welcome back to another history teacher reacts video mr terry i continue my search for historical knowledge found here on the internet all right today's video comes from our awesome patrons over at patreon and in this week's poll they voted on this video which just came out which is the aztec ball game where the losers were sacrificed now this is by a channel favorite of our simple history and i think this is awesome um this is something that i've known about and i've taught about before this the sport where losers could be killed at the end and uh but it is interestingly one of the biggest continuities in mesoamerican history is a sport that has this kind of element like a sport but then it also has this mix of almost like uh religious and cultural significance as well with famously uh stories of some of the losers being used sacrifices or having some other kind of uh thing happen to them anyway i'm excited to learn a little bit more about this because the title for this is that it's aztec and i know this this predates them quite a bit and again it's one of the largest continuities meaning things that has had some kind of iteration for many many many years and in basically different civilizations in mesoamerica so i'm excited to learn more about this and i'm glad that they chose it this week all right the original video link is down below you need to make sure that you click that link so you give them the view and be sure to give it a like and sub to simple history there's some of the coolest animated uh history videos with the coolest stories that you'll find on any channel on the internet so make sure that you do that alright there's some links to some others uh other things down below like my gaming channel and some other fun stuff anyways let's go ahead and get started [Music] [Music] this episode is brought to you by the great courses plus enjoy lectures from top professors from around the world click on the link in the description below to start your free trial today the aztec ball game where the losers were sacrificed the mesoamerican ball game is an ancient sport dating back to 1600 bc played by most pre-hispanic mesoamerican civilizations particularly the mayas and aztecs i think i wanted to say that it goes back even to olmec who are even before then they were around about ancient greek time they were bc um group of people that you know you'd think that the rules would change over time because you know sports do but you know the general idea of they have this ball and you have like a scoring system and stuff like that but i'm sure they're going to get into more of the rules but yeah i think it might go back even further back from the maya given its age and widespread adoption across the central american region the sport has known many variations and ritual functions over the centuries it also has several names the aztecs called it oyamalitsli the mayans called it pizz while the spanish called it elwego de pelota mesoamericano meaning the mesoamerican ball game the spanish also mistakenly used the nahuatl term clutchley to describe the game though the aztecs only used the word in reference to the court it's not entirely known where the spanish always ruining the translations huh oh i'm gonna get in a rubber because it's made of rubber ball game originated though it's likely it came from the low-lying tropical regions of modern-day mexico and guatemala where rubber trees grow yeah river comes from a sap there's a tree and there's a white sap in it and you know it's it was a big deal of course it becomes a much bigger deal around the basically during the the industrial revolution as rubber and once becomes vulcanized with uh was a good year i think that kind of perfected kind of the call that a process of vulcanization to make kind of the modern rubber that we use today that was used industrial evolution for rubber to be able to use for parts and things like that um but yeah it was extremely valuable which brings in some horrific things in history like um the the belgium belgian occupation of congo which led to the death of millions of people basically put in this slave-like labor of farming this but rubber is one of the one of the great resources that probably doesn't get talked enough like of natural resources that you hear of other natural resources but it is over 1 000 archaeological remains of courts have survived in most of the region's major ancient cities you can see some of them courts are usually near the city's main temples a testament to the game's civic and political importance these enormous masonry courts were commonly built in a capital eye shape they varied tremendously in size but were at least 100 feet long and 20 feet wide the central alley was flanked by two high walls these were vertical or sloped in the end zones the space was commonly closed by thick low walls or temples the earliest classical courts however were left open-ended the game was played using now i'm sure they're going to get to it and it's hard because i react to this stuff for the first time i don't make sure i don't miss stuff um but this was very difficult this ball i i went to a a mine exhibit once at a uh at a museum and they had kind of like a like a replica ball that you could pick up it was big it was like bigger than a basketball and it was really heavy it really kind of felt and handled like kind of like a medicine ball where it could have it would maybe have a little bit more bounce than most medicine balls you're using but it was very very heavy and they're like these guys are knocking it around like could be a soccer ball like you could juggle like a soccer ball on your knee or foot or whatever yeah it wouldn't have been very much like they would have been a heavy thing that had been very difficult um to do like what these animated guys are doing however were left open-ended the game was played using a heavy rubber ball when the spaniards came across the sport in the 16th century the aztecs were playing with balls weighing almost six and a half pounds that's over six times the weight of an average soccer ball okay yeah right though the size could vary across time and region painful bruises were just a routine part of the sport hematomas were often so severe that they had to be drained and a hit to the stomach or head could be fatal oh spanish chroniclers were particularly impressed by their like why did they do that then why did why did they make it lighter or something because it was rubber but then inside i think i don't know exactly what the material was inside but it was rubber kind of like plastered around something hard maybe like a rock or something that's why it was especially so heavy i had this really thick heavy core to it the bounce and elasticity of the ball kept in play thanks to the great walls like our head could be fatal spanish chroniclers were particularly impressed by the bounce and elasticity of the ball kept in play thanks to the great walls of the court sure the mesoamerican peoples used latex sap from lowland rubber trees mixed in with the vine of an american species of morning glory together this formed a resilient rubber used to make the ball they knew what they were doing the southern province of torch depak was required to produce 16 000 rubber balls every year for the aztec capital of pinochet the origins of this tribute are unknown but we know that it would have required a tremendous amount of manual labor a rubber tree only produces about three pounds of rubber less than half of what's needed for a single ball so the people of tochtepec would have needed to gather the sap from about 50 000 trees leading the tribute would have required an army of workers and entire forests cut down yeah that's a lot and the labor costs of course would be huge for like that something like that that ball would be expensive not something that a commoner could afford and go practice in the backyard with you'd think the amount of work it would have been crazy expensive finally the sixteen thousand balls weighing over a hundred thousand pounds had to be carried about two hundred miles to tenochtitlan it's unlikely this was all done in one go though before we discuss what made the sport so important to mesoamerican civilizations let's look at the rules yeah these varied significantly depending on time and place and it's almost impossible to know all of them however among the many variations some common trends emerge the game was played by two opposing teams each made up of two to four players though other findings put it at five to eight most commonly the ball was kept in the air using the hip and posterior however the use of rackets bats handstones and the shoulder elbow head thigh knee and forearm has also been recorded in different cities and eras except for serves use of the hand was almost always penalized okay so yeah i mean that's that's a lot of it's like everything but your hands which are a lot of different things and for something really heavy you would need something hard you know to be able to hit on your body so it makes sense that it would just by really not having a lot of options like using your elbows and your knees so it's hard and be easier to hit up where you know like like in soccer or something you control with your chest or something you'll be able to do that with that or your head it sounds like you know it was it'd be way too heavy you get a concussion off that thing but your hips kind of using your hip bone for that sort of thing pretty much because there's nothing else you can use that would uh move that ball significantly at all the idea was to keep the ball in play either in the air or simply moving depending on the size of the court and of course location and era we know that it was a very brutal game played aggressively with a lot of diving onto the hard floor with the heavy solid ball regularly striking the players there were several ways of scoring points i looked so hard included failure to return the ball hitting it out of bounds making the ball land in the opponent's end zone and hitting certain markers that dotted the court a final way of scoring points was to shoot the ball through the raised rings that were fixed on both of the central walls this is what i was wondering if if it was just like an incredibly low scoring game if what the other points were because famous thing is they have these rings right on the walls and hit them through but they're like high up and to be able to get that kind of control for a ball that was so heavy you couldn't throw but you couldn't like you know the accuracy of like you see a soccer player that can kick it you know hard that'd be on the move of hard i always wondered like could they like what was scoring like and did people ever score you know and how how low scoring it was but it sounds like there were some other potential ways you could score there interesting that's something i didn't know this is what i was hoping for the hoops were a post-classic amaya innovation from the 10th century a.d and would later infiltrate to the toltec and aztec civilizations the hoops also delineated the court into caps divided by a black or green line that stretched from the foot of one hoop to the other shooting the hoop was not an effortless task no the rings were so small that they only just allowed for the ball to pass by a few inches they were also fixed way above the player's heads the rings at the ancient mayan city of chichen itza in modern day yucatan for example we're almost 20 feet high yeah a sense of scale a standard basketball hoop is fixed 10 feet above the ground for these reasons yeah i've never been i've never been there um new mexico but i have students that tell me all the time and they they they go to that fa yeah a famous one at chichen itza just the ball court and that was where i saw and it's i mean look at pictures of it it's so far up i'm like how could you ever like ever hit it through since shooting this heavy ball into the goal was extremely rare add to that the prohibited use of hands and it seems almost impossible most games were there for one on the other point scoring rules if achieved though shooting the hoop could end the game in the scoring team's favor yeah so it was worth a lot the rules for ending the game are unclear and no doubt varied substantially one variation states that was one when the ball hit the ground in the opponent's camp this would likely have been for smaller courts one that would have allowed the ball to stay in the air for longer periods of time that was something i wonder too if you like with the with the sport like that like if i i can't imagine how you'd be able to keep the ball up and the other team like you know like volleyball i mean that's you know the goal is to not let it hit the ground how to understand how you could not have it hit the ground again with how heavy it is and they said didn't they say it was 100 feet long or something like that the court and then what happens when it's on the ground can you then can you pick it up and like restart because you can't use your hands so how do you get it up do you try to flick it up with your foot using the walls to support this playstyle in this version scoring points would have happened with no interruptions to the game another version of the game was one when the opponent allowed the ball to stop moving and falls still in the opposite cap this was likely played on larger courts both versions would have been extremely laborious professional ball players made a living through noble patronage and victory prizes on the noble classes including warriors would have also been expected to play the game the game made a great civic spectacle the games were not on the same scale as roman gladiatorial combat or the ancient greek olympic games but they were socially politically and religiously important to most mesoamerican cities the walls of the court were often elaborately colored but the stonework featured intricate carvings these would have been sources of pride for the city designed to be admired by any who were invited to the spectacle the ball game was used for various political means it was sometimes used to settle disputes between different clans rather than going to so yeah okay well he's about he's going to rulers could just play ball okay so yeah hey we could go to war but let's just do this you bring your team i'll bring my team and the loser loses their farms or whatever 16th century aztec emperor aksa yakuttal allegedly played hiwi telemach the chief of the shochi milko people wagering his annual income against huge portions of his rival's land leaders are playing betting was very common on most occasions people particularly the urban elite gambled from the twin masonry stands on either side of the court funny how we have these sports and competitions it doesn't matter when in history it is gambling is always there there's always gambling people it must be some innate thing that we want to it's just an easy way to bet gems lands slaves mistresses and even children were gambled away during the festive event you badge of that you got like the the the patriots are playing the jets or something and it's like all right you're putting up your child i'm putting on my child you know we both hate our children maybe let's put them up and winner gets the other one players occasionally wore a ceremonial-like elaborate headdress with feathers though deerskin loin cloths and skirts appeared to be the most common often with leather hip guards leather and wooden padding for the knees chest and arms were also used alongside helmets depending on the er padding for the knees chest and arms were also used alongside helmets depending on the era and civilization towards the post-classical ritual sacrifice was added to the okay they couldn't they couldn't just end it right there have it be a fun sport whatever and i would then i would love to go i want to go i want to watch the game i want to go sit in the stands with all the aztec people or something but come on just keep it at that why does it have to end in some kind of gore right can you just do that aztecs doing this romans why do you why do you got to make the killing a spectacle can't we just to have a nice competitive sports and have fun that way and world which then spread across to the aztecs the mayas even featured the ball game in a creation myth from the popul vu a text recounting the mythology and history of the keiche people from modern day guatemala though the story has several variations one is that hero twins were playing the game when their noise disturbed the lords of death the lords then summoned the twins into the mayan underworld called shibalba but the twins outfoxed the twelve lords and the challenges they set they could resurrect their father and uncle whom the lords had killed and buried in a ball court and had them merged to become the gods of maize the twins themselves would rise to the celestial realms and form the sun and the moon seems legit from this the ball game was depicted as combat between the gods of death and affliction against their earthly adversaries i mean we basically do that with our sports today soccer football baseball football lacrosse whatever right it's all part of reenacting the battles of good and evil and creation it was a duel between life and death or good versus evil the ball might have symbolized the sun passing between the underworld and the heavens represented of course by both camps the court became associated with fertility and rebirth and blood was ritually spilled to nourish the god of maize the aztecs had a slightly different take on the game's sacred component the game was a duel between day and night one side represented the sun god whitsilapochtli while the others represented the moon and stars or the goddess kulyoshaki and kotaque's 400 sons it's un awesome would you guys be team sun we'd see the poachley or team moon which which which team would you be i think team moon sounds kind of cool but i mean the sun is the supreme being so you would think that the sun team would be the better team clear exactly how much the moon's component of the ball game trumped over its adoption as a popular sport once again this would have significant variation across mesoamerica given the aztecs track record for human sacrifice it might have been an important festival most likely in spring and autumn the equinoxes in march and september were possibly celebrated with a ball game both in mayan and aztec societies sacrificial victims have been documented including defeated noble players coaches and sometimes entire teams searches some historians believe that it was common practice for the losing team to be publicly decapitated after the game given the honor of shedding blood for the gods of the sun rain agriculture and fertility i'll leave you on this this frame for a second i always thought it like when i teach about this um about mesoamerican societies and just talk about like hey what if what if what if it was like that today again the the the new england patriots and the green bay packers are playing in the super bowl but then the loser gets sacrificed to the gods of i don't know football or something and they'd be like wow i guess they really did take it seriously we think we take our sports seriously today yeah it's a mat because i mean for for aztecs uh the the shedding of this blood for wheat see the poachedly the sun god is literally necessary for the existence of the world without it the the world would be destroyed the universe would be destroyed so they yeah took it you know that very seriously and this i guess could be a way to to do that as well to make those sacrifices i don't know if it's like win-win situation for the public it's like hey we gotta sacrifice some people anyways we could at least make it a spectacle sometimes a section or the entire winning team were sacrificed at chichen itza there is even evidence that players use the severed head of a sacrificial victim to evoke mastery and control over the cosmic order it has been suggested that the points of the team's sacrificed skulls or whole heads were used as balls if true would have likely served a ritualistic purpose imagine that in american football you got you're like throwing all right patriots you lost okay the new ball is tom brady chief whichever form the ball game best served the society in which it was played oliamalitsli and pete's made up a huge part of mesoamerican political and cultural life with the spanish conquest the game's widespread adoption suffered a gradual decline in part because the new masters saw it as barbaric but it did not go extinct today it is known as ulama or poktapok and has survived in various indigenous communities of mexico though the courts are more modest and the game's outcome is less bloody the ball game has kept many of its characteristics and the players who take part strive to preserve their ancestors legacy one of the oldest sports in human civilization cool we'd like to extend a shout out to great courses for making this video possible stream world-class courses right from your home using your tablet tv laptop or any other mobile device this platform has tons of interesting content to watch all curated by knowledgeable professors there's a wide variety of historical content including courses ranging from the mayan world to understanding imperial china and their dynasties and culture one of our favorite courses is about the rise and fall of the roman empire something we've covered a few times start learn about something new roman empire and follow its rise to success all the way to its crushing defeat at the hands of barbarians watching this course reminded us that every empire that is seemingly unstoppable can eventually fall check it out now as it's on sale and covers one of the most interesting stories of the ancient world take advantage of our unique deal to all the history lovers watching simple history by checking out the link in the description below or go to thegreatcoursesplus.com simple history to get your free trial started today well great yeah learned some new things definitely knew about the brutality of i think a lot of you had heard that before but um need to see a little bit of how it was played and um some of the other like the political and kind of religious undertones to it and how that kind of combined that way um i don't know if it started specifically as a religious thing did they really say that or for you know i mean a lot of it's impossible to know what the significance was or did it truly just start as an honest game to be played and that'd be really cool we need we should uh check out if anybody has good i don't know videos or channels or something that we could check out to see modern iterations of it i've kind of seen like pictures and things um of yeah like like a little more modern ones with you know they they build ramps and stuff and kind of play it but that's something that sounds interesting uh you come and know if you have any videos to share you can do that you can share it on youtube but uh best place to do that is to join our discord server and put you can put links into our video suggestion channel um and that would be cool too to to check that out so anyway very cool just part of history and you know sports are such an interesting part of history and the fact that they just they seem to be timeless it's like you know the recreational like physical at competition activities seem to just be a pastime of humanity for such a long time and you know it's huge now and it was you know i took took uh not just recreational and and just entertainment purposes but as you saw there had political and uh religious connections as well but yeah pretty cool does that sound like something you'd like to learn how to play i guess um is it too difficult i mean without the you know executions and stuff like that does that sound like something you'd you want to play maybe you ought to go if you're inspired of this go make a don't make a team go make a league or something and let me know how it goes and we'll we'll definitely check that out but anyway it's really cool again it's something i've taught about before and it's really cool that you have this sport that continued before and after these civilizations going basically just mesoamerica from the aztecs to the mayan again go back to olmec um millennia you know a sport having that kind of that kind of uh success for that long is you know really saying something and maybe it's just the power of sports right all right well cool um thanks again to the patrons who voted on this video if you'd like to join patreon you can start as a little dollar a month if you want to get you access to polls and there's uh fun merchandise and other things that other benefits that you can get if you'd like to support the channel that way but thanks again to you guys for doing that and with that we'll see you next time bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 7,954

Rating: 4.9733334 out of 5

Keywords: react, history, Aztec, ball game, Mayan, sacrifice

Id: FHllF-CMNCc

Length: 24min 43sec (1483 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 12 2021