[Aztlan] Mauls and Mesoamerican ballgame a la Cotzumalhuapa

[Jerry Offner]

See also:  famsi.org for hand mauls in sculpture.

Search for:

"A Corpus of Cotzumalhuapa-Style Sculpture, Guatemala"

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List of Drawings

Observe #2, 7, 8,

perhaps also #3, 4, 5

for examples from what is probably a relatively early Nahua ("Pipil") intrusion into the Maya realm, with control of cacao and a distinctive sculptural corpus centered in considerable part around a particular style of ball game.  Apparently, not a good place to lose, if the losers were even given a chance in a "game" as Westerners might conceive of it. 

Drawings 10 and 11 may well represent rulers of towns conquered by Cotzumalhuapa.  Note also the interesting Xipe mask in drawing 25. A simple compare-contrast of Cotzumalhuapa-Maya ball game iconography presents opportunities for some ambitous researcher...



-----Original Message-----
>From: David Hixson <aztlandave at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Jun 5, 2006 3:55 PM
>To: aztlan at lists.famsi.org
>Subject: RE: [Aztlan] Yokes and the Mesoamerican ballgame
>
>Dr. Stan Freer forwarded a couple of images of what
>many on this list (and in the literature) have called
>"knuckledusters" (most common in Olmec Imagery - see
>first image), and the "boxing gloves" of Oaxaca (see
>second image).  Stan's descriptions are in his
>original post (recopied below).
>
>http://www.famsi.org/aztlan/uploads/San_Lorenzo_Ball_Playerjpg.jpg
>
>http://www.famsi.org/aztlan/uploads/BallGlove.jpg
>
>--- STAN FREER wrote:
>------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> Bill Swezey told our class at UDLA back in the early
>> 70's how they played a "ball-game" in the train
>> station area of Oaxaca City on Sunday afternoons and
>> how they wore these large "Knuckle-Dusters" to hit
>> this hard ball.  He said that there was a guy called
>> the "Butcher" who wore one on each hand but missed
>> the
>> ball one time and that was "all she wrote" as they
>> say.  It hit him in the head!    Swezey suggested
>> that
>> the one Olmec carving (which I believe is at the
>> Xalapa Museum) of a snarling faced guy with what
>> looked like gloves on his hands was one of these
>> ancient ball players and suggested there were Ball
>> Games not a Ball Game.   
>> I have attached an outline of it (Monument 10, San
>> Lorenzo from an article by Swezey  titled "The
>> Ballgame La Pelota Mixteca"  in Revista de La
>> Universidad de las Americas   Vol. 1, No. 1 1973
>>  
>> He actually has a drawing of a ball glove  in the
>> article.
>> It looks like one big knuckle buster that was
>> strapped
>> to the hand and held in the palm of the hand.
>>  
>>  
>> Stan Freer, Ph.D.
>> Archaeologist,
>> Department of Anthropology
>> Rm 435 Fletcher Argue Bldg.
>> University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada 
>> R3T 2N2
>> Phone Work: 204-474-6814  Home: 204-269-7584  Fax::
>> 204-474-7600
>> E-Mail: sfreer at ms.umanitoba.ca
>> Web site: (genealogy)  
>> http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~sfreer/index.html
>> Minds are like Parachutes...they work best when they
>> are open"
>
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