PokaTok The Ancient Maya's Breathtaking Ball Game YouTube

Ballgame - Pok-ta-Pok Amazing Fact: Did you know that the Maya played the earliest team sport in the world? It was a ballgame using a rubber ball and the players could only hit the ball using their hips, elbows or knees! They were never allowed to use their hands, feet or head!. A Legacy of Sport, Spirituality, and Survival The ancient Maya and Aztec ball games, Pok-A-Tok and Ōllamaliztli, were far more than mere pastimes. They were deeply spiritual rituals that connected players and spectators to the cosmic forces that governed their world.

Violence in the Mesoamerican Ball Game To the Maya people, it was known as Pok a Tok, to the Aztec it was Tlachtli. Today it is called Ulama. The Mesoamerican ball game was a game where the action reached unimaginable levels of violence even by today's standards.. The Mesoamerican ballgame is known by a wide variety of names. In English, it is often called pok-ta-pok (or pok-a-tok). This term originates from a 1932 article by Danish archaeologist Frans Blom, who adapted it from the Yucatec Maya word pokolpok. [5][6] In Classical Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire, it was called ōllamalīztli ([oːlːamaˈlist͡ɬi]) or ōllama, as well as.