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VERNON L. SCARBOROUGH and DAVID R. WILCOX, Eds. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1991. xvii, 404 pp., illus. $45.
Few aspects of ancient Mesoamerican culture have generated as much interest among both specialists and the general public as the game that was played with rubber balls on masonry courts. According to Paul Kirchhoff, the ball game constitutes a defining trait of the Mesoamerican region. In the archeological record, ball courts, stone paraphernalia, and scenes in art all testify to the importance of the game. Early colonial texts also underline the importance of this sport. According to accounts pertaining to the Aztec and West Mexican Acaxee, the ball court was the first structure fashioned in a community. The ball game plays a prominent role in the mythology of the Aztec, Tarascans, and Maya. Far more than simply entertaining sport, the game was inextricably tied to native society, ritual, and belief.
During the past century aspects of the ball game have been intensively studied by many scholars, among them Eduard Seler, Walter Krickeberg, Theodore Stern, Gordon Ekholm, Stephan Borhegyi, and Ted Leyenaar. Derived from a conference held in Tucson in 1985, the 16 studies contained in this most recent work on the subject not only review and assess earlier work but also provide new interpretative insights and previously unreported field data. Geographically, the coverage is broad. Fourteen of the studies concern specific regions, among them the Gulf Coast, Central Mexico, Oaxaca, West Mexico, the Maya lowlands and highlands, and the southern piedmont of Chiapas and Guatemala. In addition, Wilcox describes Hohokam ball courts of the American Southwest and rightly notes that they are but northern manifestations of the Mesoamerican ball game.
This volume demonstrates the efficacy of studying such a phenomenon in the context of the Mesoamerican interaction sphere. Despite its many permutations over time and distance, the Mesoamerican ball game is notably consistent in form, function, and symbolic meaning. Along with delineating enduring essential qualities, such a broad comparative approach can also call attention to markedly divergent forms. Regrettably, there is virtually no attempt in the volume to synthesize and discuss the implications of the papers it includes.
The essays display a wide range of interpretations of the roles and functions of the ball game. According...