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Mexico Gives New Life to Ancient Sports
 Sergio Solache - azcentral.com
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March 27, 2010
Mexico City - Coach Salvador Mercado took a last look at his players, crouched for the face-off with their oak clubs at the ready. Then, he took out a ball soaked with fuel oil, flicked a cigarette lighter and set it ablaze.
The whistle blew and a game of pelota purépecha was under way. Players jumped and shouted as the flaming ball whooshed toward them, scorching the grass.
Pelota purépecha, a sort of field hockey for pyromaniacs, is one of about 150 pre-Hispanic games that are on the verge of extinction, the Mexican government says, and it has launched a new push to rescue these ancient pastimes.
Mexico City is building a new sports center for pre-Hispanic games. The Mexican Sports Confederation has published a new book about the sports, is printing rulebooks for several of them and is trying to start teams in schools nationwide. Government instructors are holding seminars to teach the games to grade-school gym teachers, like the ones dodging the fiery ball on a recent afternoon.
"We want our kids to rediscover our roots through these traditional games," said Enriqueta Rosas, one of the instructors, as she wound rags and twine to make another purépecha ball, known as a zapandukua. "Our kids are drawn to foreign things and don't know the richness of our country."
Most of Mexico's traditional sports are ball games, and they had deep social and religious importance to the Aztecs, Mayans and other tribes across Mexico and Central America.
In the Mayan creation myth, known as the Popol Vuh, the gods of the underworld challenge the first two humans to a ballgame. The humans lose and are killed on the court, but their sons resurrect them and place their fathers in the sky as the sun and moon.
Every pre-Hispanic city had a ball court, and the game was depicted in frescoes, bas-relief carvings, sculptures and figurines buried with the dead. Tournaments were sometimes used instead of war to settle disputes between cities. Games could go on for days, and players were sometimes sacrificed to the gods.
Ball courts in U.S.
The game was also played at courts in what is now the United States, including the Wupatki ruins near Flagstaff, Los Hornos ruins in Tempe and the Hohokam Pima National Monument near Chandler.
In the game's most common variation, players used their hips to knock a heavy rubber ball through a stone ring. Sometimes, the ball had a human skull as its core. The modern version of this game, known as ulama, is played mainly in the western state of Sinaloa. And even there, it is dying out as players get older.
"These sports are associated with Indian cultures, and that's where the problem starts, because we continue to be a society with some very severe racism," said Cornelio Pérez, director of the Mexican Association of Prehispanic Sports Players.
Risks of injury
It doesn't help that many of the traditional sports are dangerous or painful.
Playing pelota purépecha carries the risk of burns. The heavy ball in ulama causes bruises.
In pelota mixteca, players use leather gloves with metal knuckles to punch a 2-pound, hard rubber ball. The balls travel up to 40 mph and can knock a player unconscious, Pérez said.
Because of the danger, some public parks no longer allow these traditional sports, he said.
In Mexico City, players were outraged in June when the city government decided to build a police station on the city's only remaining pelota mixteca court.
Street practice
Mercado, who coaches a women's pelota purépecha team, says his players have to practice in a street in east Mexico City because they have no home field.
Of all the sports, pelota purépecha has the most players, about 800 nationwide. The game originated with the Purépecha Indians in the central Mexican state of Michoacan.
The five-player teams use oak or plum-tree clubs to whack the ball across a goal line.
The flaming ball increases the intensity of the game and makes it possible to play at night without lights. Games played in grade-school gym classes would not use fire, Rosas said.
Generating interest
Mercado said the sports need more promotion to draw youths who otherwise gravitate to soccer, baseball or American-style football.
"People come up and ask questions, and we explain the game, but that's as far as it goes," Mercado said. "We need a strategy to get more people to the games."
After months of negotiation with players groups, the Mexico City government announced on March 12 that it will build a new $300,000 center for traditional sports. It will have two courts for pelota mixteca and pelota tarasca, another sport resembling handball.
Some migrant groups are also building courts in the United States. Migrants from Mexicos western Oaxaca state have started clubs in Fresno, San Fernando, Santa Barbara, Monterey and San Diego in California, as well as in Fort Worth, Texas, said Michael Hernández, who runs an annual tournament in Fresno.
"Our goal is that our roots not be lost," Hernández said. "We want the youth to think fondly of this sport so it won't die and be forgotten."
Reporter Chris Hawley contributed to this article.
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