1. Blood Sport
- Author:
- John Feffer
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy In Focus
- Abstract:
- In the Mayan game of pitz, the first team sport in human history, two sets of players squared off in a ball court that could stretch as long as a football field. The object of the game was to use hips and elbows to keep the ball in the air and, if possible, get it through a hoop set high on a stone wall. The ball was roughly the size and heft of a human head. Indeed, given the sheer number of decapitations in the Popol Vuh, the sacred Mayan text that prominently features the game, scholars have not ruled out the possibility that the teams sometimes played with the heads of sacrificial victims. It's also probable that, at the conclusion of the game, one team or the other fell en masse beneath the priests' daggers.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Imperialism
- Political Geography:
- United States and Mexico