1 of 4

Write now Article Tools

Page 3 of 5

whether at games or at feasts) is, once more, combined with spiritual nature in the consecration of these sites as holy places. The ballcourts may have been viewed as a sort of living entity, an extension of the divine into their world, and it is likely that religious rituals of feeding and consecration preceded social rituals of feasting and gathering (1996, 482-6).

That further religious usage then follows these social uses (for example, as sites of sacrifice) furthers another thread of Mayan thinking: that of the cyclical nature of time. This eternal forward/returning motion fits directly into the dichotomy of the spiritual and the mundane; both are forever moving into the other, without time or end, and no distinct line separates them.

Indeed, according to the documentary film Maya: The Blood of Kings the sacrifice itself is part of another kind of cycle: that of growth and rebirth. As mentioned earlier, the principal reason for Mayan bloodletting was to empower the gods with the very essence of their creation. If the Mayan people wanted victory in war, they offered themselves to the gods in return for divine strength and intervention. If food stores were low, blood was let, falling to the earth as spiritual fertilizer. It was natural for the gods to weaken; it was natural for mankind to offer them renewed strength (1995). That was the way of a world where the divine and the mortal were often separated by very thin lines. While the death of an entire team of players was apparently a rare occurrence, the sheer amount of spiritual power such an act must have conveyed in Mesoamerica must have been enormous, and may have been reserved for particular low points' in divine power or cultural prosperity. As the Maya slowly lost their grip on power and their precise astral charts were slowly cast aside, it is even likely that they sacrificed more and more ball players, and other individuals, in a last-ditch attempt to stave off the overwhelming threats of starvation and warfare that faced their society.

However, the significance of the ballcourt goes deeper than the cycles of sacrifice and politics. It reaches into the very mythology and perception of the Maya. From the very beginning of their believed span of the world's life, ballcourts have figured heavily. They most commonly appear as a direct link between the mortal and divine in Mayan literature and artwork, and more specifically, they point straight from the world of human beings to the underworld known

• << previous page
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Mayan civilization: Religion?
We want to hear your view. Write now!