Students of the Game

When the Aztec and Maya played it 500 to 1,000 years ago, the losers sometimes lost their heads—literally. Today scholars are visiting remote Mexican villages to study the oldest sport in the Americas, ulama, now on the verge of extinction

  • By John Fox
  • Photographs by Janet Jarman
  • Smithsonian magazine, April 2006, Subscribe
 

“¡Déjamelo!” Jesús “Chuy” Páez shouts. “Leave it for me!” The nine-pound black rubber ball arcs high in the late-afternoon Mexican sky. Páez’s teammates scatter, fanning out diagonally to defend their end zone. With a running leap, Páez throws his deerskin-padded hip into the ball, connecting with a punishing thud and launching the ball fast and low across the hard-packed dirt court’s centerline.

“Your turn, old man!” Páez says as Fito Lizárraga, a youthful 56-year-old, prepares to return the ball. Bracing himself on the ground with one hand, Lizárraga pivots his hip to strike the ball low and sends it skidding back through the dirt. Lizárraga’s teammates close in fast behind him as players from both teams take turns flinging themselves to the ground, and the ball ricochets between hips like an oversize pinball. Then, with a dive worthy of New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, Páez knocks the ball past Lizárraga and his teammates, sending it crashing into a chain-link fence at the end of the court.

On the sidelines, the 30 or so Los Llanitos hometown spectators erupt in cheers—a point scored in another Sunday afternoon pickup game of America’s oldest sport, ulama (from the Aztec’s word for it, ullamaliztli). Archaeologists say that communities from the jungles of Honduras to the deserts of northern Mexico have been playing versions of it for the past 3,500 years. Against all odds, this ancient game survived the rise and fall of the Olmec, Maya and Aztec civilizations, not to mention the devastation wrought by the Spanish Conquest.

Yet today ulama faces extinction. The players’ relative poverty and geographic isolation, a lack of natural rubber and competition from newer sports such as volleyball and baseball have driven it to the brink. The threat has brought together an odd coalition of academics, athletes and local businessmen trying to preserve it and study it for clues to how the ancient Mesoamericans lived.

Two professors at California State University at Los Angeles—archaeologist James Brady and art historian Manuel Aguilar—together with their students, form the Ulama Project. They seem unlikely sports fans. “For years, we archaeologists were stuck in a major rut,” says Brady.

“We’d go out, dig up an ancient ball court, date it and publish an article about it. But we rarely learned anything interesting or new about the game.” Brady and Sergio Garza, his graduate student at the University of California at Riverside, specialize in ancient Maya caves; even by day they sport flashlights on their belts, as if a dark, unexplored crevice might present itself at any moment. For Brady, ulama represents an opportunity to conduct what’s called ethnoarchaeology: by studying the modern game, he and his colleagues hope to better understand its past. “For so long,” he says, “archaeology had ball courts without people in them. By recording the game as it’s played today, we’re putting the sport, the enjoyment and the competition back into the ball court.”

The hour-and-a-half drive from the beach resort of Mazatlán to Los Llanitos (pop. 151) begins on a jammed coastal highway lined with fast-food joints and high-rise hotels and ends on a bone-jarring dirt road winding through withered cornfields. Just past a church and a corral packed with cattle, Brady, Garza and I pull up to the tin-roofed home of 28-year-old farmer Chuy Páez. Tan, trim and wearing buffed cowboy boots and a large silver belt buckle, Páez steps over a dog sleeping in the shade of the porch and extends a hearty welcome.

Inside his concrete-floor bedroom is Páez’s personal Wall of Fame. In one photograph, he’s captured in midair, arms out and hip thrust forward, just seconds after striking the ball. In another, Páez’s 11-year-old son, Chuyito, poses proudly in his deerskin loincloth, holding a ball that looks to be nearly half his size. As we tour the gallery, Páez reaches up into the rafters and unties a rubber ball from a hanging neckerchief. Then, leading us back outside, he positions me in one corner of the porch and walks ten feet to the opposite corner.


“¡Déjamelo!” Jesús “Chuy” Páez shouts. “Leave it for me!” The nine-pound black rubber ball arcs high in the late-afternoon Mexican sky. Páez’s teammates scatter, fanning out diagonally to defend their end zone. With a running leap, Páez throws his deerskin-padded hip into the ball, connecting with a punishing thud and launching the ball fast and low across the hard-packed dirt court’s centerline.

“Your turn, old man!” Páez says as Fito Lizárraga, a youthful 56-year-old, prepares to return the ball. Bracing himself on the ground with one hand, Lizárraga pivots his hip to strike the ball low and sends it skidding back through the dirt. Lizárraga’s teammates close in fast behind him as players from both teams take turns flinging themselves to the ground, and the ball ricochets between hips like an oversize pinball. Then, with a dive worthy of New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, Páez knocks the ball past Lizárraga and his teammates, sending it crashing into a chain-link fence at the end of the court.

On the sidelines, the 30 or so Los Llanitos hometown spectators erupt in cheers—a point scored in another Sunday afternoon pickup game of America’s oldest sport, ulama (from the Aztec’s word for it, ullamaliztli). Archaeologists say that communities from the jungles of Honduras to the deserts of northern Mexico have been playing versions of it for the past 3,500 years. Against all odds, this ancient game survived the rise and fall of the Olmec, Maya and Aztec civilizations, not to mention the devastation wrought by the Spanish Conquest.

Yet today ulama faces extinction. The players’ relative poverty and geographic isolation, a lack of natural rubber and competition from newer sports such as volleyball and baseball have driven it to the brink. The threat has brought together an odd coalition of academics, athletes and local businessmen trying to preserve it and study it for clues to how the ancient Mesoamericans lived.

Two professors at California State University at Los Angeles—archaeologist James Brady and art historian Manuel Aguilar—together with their students, form the Ulama Project. They seem unlikely sports fans. “For years, we archaeologists were stuck in a major rut,” says Brady.

“We’d go out, dig up an ancient ball court, date it and publish an article about it. But we rarely learned anything interesting or new about the game.” Brady and Sergio Garza, his graduate student at the University of California at Riverside, specialize in ancient Maya caves; even by day they sport flashlights on their belts, as if a dark, unexplored crevice might present itself at any moment. For Brady, ulama represents an opportunity to conduct what’s called ethnoarchaeology: by studying the modern game, he and his colleagues hope to better understand its past. “For so long,” he says, “archaeology had ball courts without people in them. By recording the game as it’s played today, we’re putting the sport, the enjoyment and the competition back into the ball court.”

The hour-and-a-half drive from the beach resort of Mazatlán to Los Llanitos (pop. 151) begins on a jammed coastal highway lined with fast-food joints and high-rise hotels and ends on a bone-jarring dirt road winding through withered cornfields. Just past a church and a corral packed with cattle, Brady, Garza and I pull up to the tin-roofed home of 28-year-old farmer Chuy Páez. Tan, trim and wearing buffed cowboy boots and a large silver belt buckle, Páez steps over a dog sleeping in the shade of the porch and extends a hearty welcome.

Inside his concrete-floor bedroom is Páez’s personal Wall of Fame. In one photograph, he’s captured in midair, arms out and hip thrust forward, just seconds after striking the ball. In another, Páez’s 11-year-old son, Chuyito, poses proudly in his deerskin loincloth, holding a ball that looks to be nearly half his size. As we tour the gallery, Páez reaches up into the rafters and unties a rubber ball from a hanging neckerchief. Then, leading us back outside, he positions me in one corner of the porch and walks ten feet to the opposite corner.

“¿Listo?” he asks with a grin. “Ready?” I nod tentatively. He bounces the ball—a little smaller than a bowling ball—across the patio floor. As I reach out to catch it, the nine-pound spheroid smashes through my hands and into my chest, almost knocking me to the ground. Brady laughs, having warned me of the weight. “See what I mean?”

For Brady, as for me, just absorbing the ball’s impact for the first time was a revelation. Sure, he’d read in the writings of Diego Durán, a 16th-century Spanish friar, of the physical abuse endured by Aztec ballplayers, who “got their haunches so mangled that they had those places cut with a small knife and extracted blood which the blows of the ball had gathered.” And though I’d written a 300-page doctoral dissertation on ulama, I had never before felt the blow of a ball against my hip. “It’s one of those things you can read about all you want,” says Brady, “but until you feel it for yourself and have the bruise to show for it, it’s meaningless.”

After a midafternoon lunch of pozole, a traditional Mexican hominy stew, Páez leads us to the town’s playing field, or taste (pronounced TAS-TAY), a name believed to derive from tlachtli (TLASH-TLI), the Aztec word for ball court. Scholars have documented about 1,500 of them and excavated about 450. With their two long, low, parallel mounds forming an I-shaped alley, ulama courts are as distinctive as baseball diamonds.

Sixteenth-century Spanish chroniclers of the New World, most of them Franciscan friars bent on spreading the Christian faith, described with awe their first encounters with this peculiar sport, played with a solid ball that appeared to have magical properties. Hernando Cortés was so impressed with the game that he brought a team of players back to Spain in 1528 to perform in the royal court. But the friars soon learned that for the Aztec and other Mesoamericans, ullamaliztli was as much religious rite as sandlot sport. In their codices, or sacred books, the Aztec compared the bouncing ball to the cosmic journey of the sun into and out of the underworld. Highly ritualized ballgames enacted at key religious festivals helped to ensure the continuous cycles of nature and the cosmos. Ball courts in Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital (in what is now Mexico City), were adorned with sculptures depicting local gods and other supernatural beings. Priests initiated important games with offerings of incense in nearby temples.

At least some of the games saw human sacrifice. The losing players—or unlucky stand-ins captured in battle—could literally lose their heads in post-game ceremonies. In one graphic depiction on the walls of the monumental ninth-century Maya ball court at Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán, serpents and squash plants sprout from the neck of a kneeling, decapitated player, bestowing fertility on the land and the living. A rival player wields a stone knife and the freshly severed head as his grisly trophy.

In 1585, the Spanish, citing such practices, banned the ballgames. But in remote frontier villages, ulama survived. “When the Spanish friars drove the game underground,” Aguilar says, “it almost certainly lost most of its religious overtones.” But some intriguing practices seem to hint at a residual link to ancient beliefs. According to Spanish accounts, for example, the Aztec played primarily on religious feast days; today in Los Llanitos, the game is played on Christian holidays. And while the ancient ball courts were often next to pyramid temples, today’s tastes tend to be located next to village cemeteries.

Not that the game was ever entirely spiritual. In an early account of the sport’s dark side, chronicler Diego Durán describes how some players “gambled their homes, their fields, their corn granaries, their maguey plants. They sold their children in order to bet and even staked themselves and became slaves, to be sacrificed later if they were not ransomed.”

The los llanitos taste hardly suggests the grandeur of its ancient precursors; it is a long, narrow alley of hard-packed clay lined with palm trees, about 12 feet wide and the length of roughly half a football field. At two o’clock on a Sunday, the first of eight players arrives. He is soon joined by others in a corner of the court that serves as a makeshift locker room. They strip to their underwear and put on fajados, four-piece leather-and-cloth girdles that protect the stomach, hips and buttocks. As the players take to the field to warm up, spectators stake out the best, and safest, spots—mostly in the end zones, the better to avoid a hurtling ball, which travels upwards of 30 miles per hour. Young boys, wearing fajados and the occasional baseball cap, imitate the players on the sidelines, while toddlers play safely behind the chain-link fence.

The game begins when a team of three to five players throws the ball high (male por arriba) or rolls it low (male por abajo) across a chalk-marked centerline. Play continues back and forth, with contestants using only their hips to strike the ball, until a point (raya) is scored when a team fails to return the ball, as in tennis, or when the ball is driven past the opponent’s end zone, as in football. The first team to total eight rayas wins, though due to a complex scoring system that not only awards points but also takes them away, games can go on for hours or even, when halted by nightfall, days.

For Brady and his colleagues, what began as a purely academic study has turned into an all-out effort to save one of the Americas’ oldest traditions. The pair recently petitioned the Mexican Ministry of Tourism, without success, to nominate ulama for UNESCO recognition, to attract more interest and support. But in the end, ulama’s survival may hinge on something far more pedestrian: the availability of rubber balls.

At one time, during the Aztec Empire, the southern Gulf Coast of Mexico was the heartland of rubber production. But since then, the rubber trees that once grew there have been wiped out by development, and the people of Los Llanitos and nearby communities have to travel hundreds of miles into Durango, a region increasingly under the control of Mexican drug lords, to find rubber trees to milk. As a result, the price of a single ulama ball has reached a staggering $1,000, or about $250 more than the annual income of the average Los Llanitos player. The town has only one playable ball—and regular use is shrinking it.

Mazatlán businessman Jesús Gómez, a longtime supporter of the game, has taken the lead in the search for an artificial substitute, and the Ulama Project’s scholars have teamed up with members of the Mazatlán Historical Society to experiment with commercial latex from as far away as New York City. “If we can’t get natural rubber,” says Gómez, “we need to find another way. Otherwise, ulama will not survive. It’s that simple.”

So far, artifical rubber has failed to replicate the look, feel and, most important, remarkable bouncing properties of traditional balls. “Look at this,” says Páez after the game at Los Llanitos. He drops a lumpy white blob of low-grade latex rubber, the result of Jesús Gómez’s latest experiments, and watches it bounce erratically off his patio. “This doesn’t work,” he says with visible disgust. “It’s not natural rubber.” But the researchers have not given up. In La Savila, a neighboring village, Aguilar says players are field-testing a ball made of another artifical compound, and he remains optimistic that a substitute may soon be found.

After rubber balls, what ulama may need more than anything is followers. Although players have been invited to resorts in the Yucatán to perform for tourists in faux-Maya extravaganzas—complete with drums, feather headdresses and face paint—most decline, regarding the displays as exploitative and culturally inaccurate. For Páez and his teammates, ulama is a living sport that tourists should appreciate on its own terms, not a curiosity. Aguilar and his colleagues are working to convince Spanish-language television networks to sponsor a tour that would bring ulama to the streets of Los Angeles and other Latino population centers in the United States. Perhaps here, in a nation increasingly proud of its Latino roots, the oldest sport in the Americas will find the fans sufficient to carry it through another millennium or two.


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Comments (58)

I'm a weightlifter so a 9 pound ball wouldn't be that heavy to me, anyone wanna play?

Posted by Stan Johnson on September 18,2010 | 10:21 AM

I love this article but am unable to access any of the photographs that accompanied it. Is there a way to do this?

Posted by Debra Casado on March 2,2010 | 09:52 AM

There are ruins of an ancient court in La Chole, Guerro - interesting history!

Posted by Gao Go on January 23,2010 | 09:15 PM

This sport is really interesting. I liked how informative this article was. It gave me a great picture of how intense the game is and i think that it is crazy how long ago people played it! It would be really neat to see a game of this played today and it is cool how there are some people oput there who keep it going!

Posted by Mariluz on February 4,2009 | 10:10 PM

I think it is great kids my age are striving so hard to keep a sport that is part of their heritage alive.

Posted by Paco from Sra. Beckers class on February 3,2009 | 08:38 AM

It amazing how the roots for this game extended back to at least the 2nd millennium BC and evidence of which has been found in nearly all Mesoamerican cultures in an area extending from modern-day Mexico to El Salvador, and possibly in modern-day Arizona and New Mexico. I find it interesting how the word ulama comes from the Nahuatl word ullamaliztli a combination of ullama (playing of a game with a ball) and ulli (rubber). The game must have been very difficult as the ball was very heavy and they were not allowed to use their hands!

Posted by Regina from Sra.Becker's class on February 2,2009 | 06:30 PM

I found this article amazing. I don't understand how people can handle hitting a nine pound ball with there body parts (especially there heads). This sport is way to intense for someone like me. I have a lot of respect for the people who could play this ancient game.

Posted by Julio from Sra. Becker's class on February 1,2009 | 09:04 PM

It must be a very popular sport. If the village elders are playing it and they have museums dedicated to it i think that there on to a very historic discovery.

Posted by Ramon from Sra. Beckers class on February 1,2009 | 07:19 PM

This is a very interesting article. Ullamalitzi is unlike any other game because it is a combination of all different sports. I like how a game can go for days and there is no set time limit. I also find it interesting that people still remember this sport by reenacting games.

Posted by Baltasar from Sra. Becker's class on February 1,2009 | 01:47 PM

This article helped me understand the sport of Ullamaliztli. I think Ullamaliztli should be saved because it a important part of America's culture. I think Ullamaliztli should be preserved because no element of history should be forgotten.

Posted by Patricio from Sra. Becker's class on February 1,2009 | 01:02 PM

Very interesting sport. You would think most people would get arthritis from playing this though. Sad that such a great tradition may be lost eventually.

Posted by "Germán" from Sra. Becker's Class on February 1,2009 | 12:46 PM

it's amazing to hear that a sport that was played 3,500 years ago is still being played today although in a different version. i believe that Ullamaliztli must've been a very dangerous sport with such a heavy ball. it must've also been pretty exhilarating and adrenaline pumping for ulama players to know they were bascially playing for their lives. i was surprised to find out that some games could go on for hours or sometimes days with the awarding and subtracting of points. i hope this sport can be saved from extinction.

Posted by "Natalia" from Sra. Becker's class on February 1,2009 | 03:13 AM

It's cool that this game is still being preserved and played. It's nice that people today are getting the chance to see something that really happened so long ago. It's educational, and fun to watch!

Posted by David on January 31,2009 | 06:43 PM

I find it amazing that people still play this ancient sport! I was intrigued by how much description was given by the author and by how exciting the game sounds. After reading this article I understood how many of the games we play today were formed. I did not think that there could have a game that sounded as fun as rugby but after reading this article I found out how legendary the game of ulama would be.

Posted by "Oscar" from Sra. Becker's class on January 31,2009 | 04:05 PM

it's amazing to hear that a sport that was played 3,500 years ago is still being played today although in a different version. i believe that Ullamaliztli must've been a very dangerous sport with such a heavy ball. it must've also been pretty exhilarating and adrenaline pumping for ulama players to know they were bascially playing for their lives. i was surprised to find out that some games could go on for hours or sometimes days with the awarding and subtracting of points. i hope this sport can be saved from extinction and shared around the world.

Posted by "Natalia" from Sra. Becker's class on January 31,2009 | 10:50 AM

I thought it was really interesting that the name for the current playing field for this sport has kept a very similar name to the Aztec word for ball court. I also did not realize how rare rubber was, or how important it was to this game. I really hope they find a substitute for it, in order for this ancient game to continue.

Posted by "Nachita" from Sra. Becker's class on January 30,2009 | 11:34 PM

It is amazing that the roots for this game extended back to at least the 2nd millennium BC and evidence of which has been found in nearly all Mesoamerican cultures in an area extending from modern-day Mexico to El Salvador, and possibly in modern-day Arizona and New Mexico... And even more astonishing that losers were sometimes given up for human sacrifice! The article was very thought-provoking in the sense of how different games were played long ago. I think it's important that students learn about cultural diversity.

Posted by Regina From Sra. Becker's class on January 30,2009 | 09:42 PM

It's astonishing to see kids bring back such an old game! I would surely play this if it came to my home town. Overall, this article was very informative and interesting.

Posted by Tomas from Sra. Becker's class on January 30,2009 | 07:24 PM

I think it is good that they are preserving their people's heritage and I also found it interesting and a bit frightening that it said the players would sell their wives, children, homes, property, and even themselves just to bet on their winning. That doesn't seem much like a religious game to our culture with all the betting but three thousand years ago it was probably common.

Posted by Antonio from Sra. Becker's class on January 30,2009 | 07:02 PM

I really found this article about the game ulama very interesting. The game to me seems like a combination of football and soccer, two sports that I like to play. I would have loved to play this game simply because I love to try new things and I love to play sports. I do realize that it would be difficult to play, and that the losing players were usually sacrificed, but that would mean that I would just have to play the hardest I could to stay alive.

Posted by "Tomas" from Sra. Beckers class on January 30,2009 | 06:04 PM

Gee, that sport must have been really important in ancient society of Gomez wants to keep the tradition alive! I don't know anyone around today though that would want to be bouncing nine pounds of rubber on their heads...

Posted by Cristina from Sra. Becker's 5th period on January 30,2009 | 05:06 PM

It seems like this sport would be painful to play, with the ball being hit away using your hip. But it's really cool that the game has lasted this long, since way back from the beginning of the history of the Mexican culture. I kind of want to see it played to understand it better.

Posted by Lola from Sra. Becker's class on January 30,2009 | 04:46 PM

This article was very interesting and informative. Ulama seems like a very difficult, challenging, and exciting sport. ...But also somewhat painful. But no pain, no gain, right? It would be tragic for America to lose such an ancient piece of history.

Posted by Carlos on January 30,2009 | 04:32 PM

Ulama seems extremely interesting! The most interesting part about it is how expensive the balls are. This shows how seriously everyone took it. This is also shown by the fact that some games went on for days. It is astounding how a sport such as this can have such an impact on the culture of an ancient group. I am glad I could learn about such an influential sport!

Posted by Diego from Sra. Becker's class on January 30,2009 | 03:54 PM

Wow, this is truly unique sport, yet not entirely different from how our culture treats sports

Posted by Don Zorro on January 30,2009 | 03:12 PM

This is a great article. I think it is important to keep this ancient sport alive. People should be aware of how ancient people spent their free time.

Posted by Lazaro from Sra. Becker's class on January 30,2009 | 09:00 AM

I think it is very interesting that Hernando Cortés brought a team over form spain just to play this game. I also think that if given a chance in the USA this game might take off like wildfire. The uniforms used by the Native Americans seem very necessary with all of the pads and protection.

Posted by "Carlos" from Sra. Becker's class on January 30,2009 | 08:44 AM

I have never heard of the game ulma, but it does indeed sound very exciting and fun. It is weird to think for the past 3,000 years this game has survived. It will probably be passed on from generation to generation! I think they went a liiiitle too extreme when the losers used to die. There are so many body parts used in this. Your hand eye coordination must be absolutely spectacular for this!

Posted by Estela from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 11:02 PM

It think it is very interesting to read about all the different facts about the game of Ullamaliztli. I have also seen the movie road to El Dorado which is a good visual of the game. You get a good idea of what it was like. I like the game because it was a game of aggression, hard fighting and it was intense. It is amazing that it has survived so long. People should make an effort to try to save it.

Posted by Mario from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 10:48 PM

Ulamulitzi seems like an exciting and dangerous game. I know that I would not enjoy hitting a nine pound ball around with my hips and head. Although these children have been very brave in playing and preserving this ancient sport, some rules have been changed or altered over the centuries which seem to make it a little bit easier. In this article, it seemed that they were allowed to have the ball hit the ground, as opposed to ancient times where the ball must always remain airborn. The way to score has also changed. In ancient times, a sideways hoop was used to score through. Now, it seems as if they hit the ball into the fence. Lastly, the rule for the losing team has changed hopefully. In ancient times, the losing team was put to death as a sacrifice to the gods. I sure hope that these preservers of the game don't have to pay with their lives also. Maybe this is the reason why so few people play the sport these days. So many of the players of ulamalitzi were killed off until almost nobody was left to preserve it.

Posted by Hipolito on January 29,2009 | 10:39 PM

I think to play this sport you would have to have a lot of strenght, especially to hit a nine pound ball. I think this sport is interesting. We can learn a lot about our past.

Posted by Marisa from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 10:29 PM

I think that it's great that people today still play this game. I think that the game should be preserved so that others in the future will be able to play it. Its intersting how they played the game and that even people lost their life playig it. I know that I would not like to play it but I would like for the game to still be conserved.

Posted by "Raquel" from Sra. Beckler's class on January 29,2009 | 10:23 PM

I think this is a very interesting game to play! It has a mix of our modern day basketball and soccer. It makes me wonder, maybe we got the games of basketball and soccer from this game? I also think we should try and bring this game back and make it more popular in the United States. It seems like a challenging and difficult game and I'm sure it would become popular very quickly. I think it is a little scary how the losers used to die. This had to take much bravery to play this game. If games were like that now, I'm sure not many people would like to play. If it was for fun though, I would definatly try to get all my friends in on a game.

Posted by Maria from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 09:35 PM

WOW!!! This is such an intense sport. I wish I could play it. I find it fascintaing that the players are able to use multiple body parts to move the ball excluding their hands. I really like the article and hopefuly Sra. Becker will let us play this game in class!

Posted by Raimundo from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 09:21 PM

I am a football player at my high school. I know the hard work and dedication it takes to stick to a sport. Being able to keep this going for over 3,000 years a huge accomplishment. I really enjoyed the fact that they resembled the ancient way by continuing to play with a 9 lb. ball that is made with natural rubber. I also liked the way that they still use deer skin "body armor" to protect themselves. This sport sounds fun but I would never play it.

Posted by Miguel from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 09:09 PM

wow. This game is the ultimate test of strength. I can't even imagine a ball of that size and weight coming at me at 30 miles an hour. I would actually love to watch this game sometime. It sounds like a mix between basketball, fottball, and soccer.

Posted by Sabrina from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 09:03 PM

I found this article very helpful and informative. I have heard of this sport in recent years from my grade school teachers but never truly grasped the true brutality of the sport. It amazes me how these people hurled a nine-pound around just by their hips and took blows to their bodies like how this article describes. I like the fact that people today even after hundreds of years and after many pollutions from the outside world have tried to take away the true meaning of this game, it has still survived. If this game did ever reach the United States, I think a lot of children and all kinds of people would enjoy it.

Posted by Alberto from Senora Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 08:16 PM

Wow! This is a very revealing article about Mexican heritage. I have heard about this game (ulma) due to some previous history classes, but I was not aware of the technicalities. Without using your feet or hands you have to throw around a nine pound rubber ball. I can not imagine how exhausting this would get. Another thing that was astonishing to me was the price of the ball itself. One thousand dollars is a little ridiculous if you ask me. You can get a bouncy ball at your local grocery store for 25 cents. Not only are they willing to pay this astounding amount, but they even travel up to a couple hundred miles just to pick up materials to make the ball! Now it seems all who play ulma are pretty darn dedicated. In closing, I hope this sport sticks around for centuries to come, and they find some cheaper composites to make the ulma ball.

Posted by Pepito Morrical from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 08:10 PM

I think that preserving this ancient American sport is a great idea. Future generations can look back at us and know how the game was played based on how scientist in our times interpreted it. We may not be one hundred percent correct on the rules, but we have a very limited amount of sources to look at. Now that people are recording these games, Ullamalitzi will be remembered for multiple generations to come. Also from what our class has been taught, the games described in the article does not seem to include an "anillo" (hoop), and it mentioned the ball bouncing through the dirt. I learned that the ball had to stay airborne at all times. These are a few ways in which the rules of Ullamalitzi may have been interpreted differently.

Posted by "Nicolas" from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 08:08 PM

I think this article is very interesting. I like how the age varies among the players. Even though it seems rough. It seems like it would be pretty tough to move a nine pound ball without your hands.

Posted by Baltasar on January 29,2009 | 08:04 PM

I liked this article. It was very descriptive, but it really didnt make it clear weather the the ball must still remain airborne. I just wish the game came back in the normal times so I can actually play it and see how fun it really was!!

Posted by Gangito " Beast " Ganga from Sra.Beckers class on January 29,2009 | 08:04 PM

It is amazing that people would play this and know if they lost they would lose their lives. Its nice to know that it is now just played for fun. It would be an exciting game to learn how to play.

Posted by Elena from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 08:02 PM

I thought that this article was very fascinating. I could not believe that for 3,500 years people have been playing it from the jungles of Honduras to the deserts in Mexico. I think that this sport sounds really exciting, and I would love to give it a try.

Posted by Ignacio from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 07:37 PM

This game seems very fun and interesting to me. The players must have incredible strength and endurance to be able to play with a nine pound ball. It is also great that this sport has lasted so long.

Posted by Cleopatra from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 07:10 PM

Ullamalitzi seems like a very intriguing game to me. I like how they incorporate their religion into their game like how the ball is the cosmic journey of the sun into and out of the underworld. Maybe if this sport was around, I would watch it but never play it.

Posted by Raul from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 06:27 PM

I don't understand how this is possible. Using your head with a nine pound ball seems to be suicide to me. Its just like "heading" a bowling ball like you would a soccer ball. I think that the people must have been very strong if they were able to use their hips or knees to make this ball fly across the field at such speeds. I would really be facinated to watching such a game!

Posted by "Claudia" from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 06:16 PM

I find it amazing that ulama players are able to make a nine-pound ball move at 30 miles per hour! Also, in ancient times, the ball was not allowed to touch the ground. The article did not make it clear whether or not the ball must still remain airborne. This was a very informative and interesting article, and I hope that ulama can be preserved.

Posted by Manuel from Sra. Becker's class on January 29,2009 | 06:01 PM

I can't imagine how anyone could play a game with a nine-pound ball without using their hands. I hope it comes back into the modern day of sports so we can see what the ancients did for games thousands of years ago.

Posted by Mercedes on January 29,2009 | 02:55 PM

I've never seen this sport played but I want to. Any sport that has survived over centuries should become known and popular. People like this who strive for history to come back into everyday knowledge can change the world for anyone. One would never know, they could be great at this but they don't have the chance to find out. I think what these people are doing is great.

Posted by Alfonso from Senora Becker's class on January 28,2009 | 10:58 PM

This game seems dangerous to me. I enjoyed reading abot it, but I doubt I would ever play it. I am glad I got to read it though, because I enjoy learning about other cultures.

Posted by Graciela from Sra. Becker's Class on January 28,2009 | 09:51 PM

I am very glad I was introduced to this article because it sounds very interesting. I play a lot of sports, so it is interesting to hear about different sports from other cultures. I think this game sounds fun and I would like to try it myself.

Posted by Armandito from Sra. Beckers class on January 28,2009 | 09:47 PM

I am surprised that this sport has survived for the past 3,000 years. The game seems very hard to actually play if the players are only allowed to use their hips to strike a heavy rubber ball. I was also suprised to find out that the rubber ball is so expensive and limited.

Posted by "Gladis" from Senora Becker's class on January 27,2009 | 09:49 PM

I thought that this article was very informative and descriptive. I am glad that the tradition of this game is still carried on. Now that I understand how to play, I can picture how they played it in Ancient Mesoamerica.

Posted by "Carmen" from Sra. BEcker's class on January 27,2009 | 07:32 PM

This article is very interesting. I enjoyed reading it because i like learning about other cultures. This game seems very dangerous, but yet fun. The only part that I would choose to disclude is the part where the losers give their lives. I think it was be challening to play this game, and you must have a lot of skill to do so. This article was very fasinating.

Posted by "Margarita" from Sra. Becker's class on January 27,2009 | 04:39 PM

I think what these children are doing is really great. We can learn a lot of important things we can learn from the past. Bringing back traditions helps us preserve our world.

Posted by "Lilia" from Sra. Becker's class on January 27,2009 | 04:17 PM

I thought this article was very informative. I think it's a great idea to keep the tradition of this sport going throught the years. I would give it a try if the game was in the United States. Sounds really fun.

Posted by Adolfo on January 27,2009 | 04:02 PM

This sport seems really interesting because the ball is so heavy, and you can't use your hands either. It seems like it would be really hard to play and you would have to be tough to do it. The player's from ancient times must have had lots of guts to risk their lives for a game but now that you can just play for fun, it might be cool to learn.

Posted by Natalia on January 27,2009 | 02:46 PM

I teach Spanish III in Indiana and we're talking about this ancient sport. I'll refer this article to my students and I'll look forward to listening to their opinions.

Posted by Señora Becker on January 25,2009 | 09:06 PM

Thank you for the article on "Students of the Game". How can I find the Bio of Author, John Fox..... and, I am curious as to why there is no mention of the Olmec in the article. I thought the Aztec and the Maya got it from the Olmec. ?????? Gracias...........

Posted by J. T. Coleman on March 2,2008 | 10:43 PM



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