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Batey (game)
Encyclopedia
Plaza
Plaza is a Spanish word related to "field" which describes an open urban public space, such as a city square. All through Spanish America, the plaza mayor of each center of administration held three closely related institutions: the cathedral, the cabildo or administrative center, which might be...
around which the native Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
Taino
Taíno people
The Taínos were pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. It is thought that the seafaring Taínos are relatives of the Arawak people of South America...
Indians built their settlements. It was usually a rectangular area surrounded by stones with carved symbols known as petroglyphs.
The batey was the area in which batey events (e.g. ceremonies, the ball game, etc.) took place. The batey ceremony (also known as batu) can be viewed from some historical accounts as more of a judicial contest rather than a game. Because historical accounts of the game and court space come from (mostly Spanish) European
European ethnic groups
The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
explorers
Exploration
Exploration is the act of searching or traveling around a terrain for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans...
, the true nature, history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, and function of the batey is still contested. Neighboring tribes may have used batey matches to resolve differences without warfare.
Batey Origins
There is no consensus as to whether the batey ball game in the Caribbean was independently developed in different regions of the New WorldNew World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
or whether it diffused from one or more locations. The large centrally located cemeteries in Android villages served as plazas like those seen in the lowland communities of South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
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The ceremonial and religious significance of the later-developed ball game appears to indicate a connection with the Mesoamerican ballgame
Mesoamerican ballgame
The Mesoamerican ballgame or Tlatchtli in Náhuatl was a sport with ritual associations played since 1,000 B.C. by the pre-Columbian peoples of Ancient Mexico and Central America...
, and it has been argued that the batey ball game of the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
is a simplified version of the Maya pok ta pok, specified to the culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
and religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
of the peno. It is possible that the route of diffusion of the game of pok ta pok and other elements of Mayan
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
culture was not a direct one from the Yucatan
Yucatán
Yucatán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Yucatán is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 106 municipalities and its capital city is Mérida....
to the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
, but an indirect one by way of South America, because the Otomacos in South America also played a similar game.
Interestingly, ethnographer Ralph Beals reported in the early 1130's that the Acaxee
Acaxee
Acaxee was a tribe or group of tribes in the Sierra Madre Occidental in eastern Sinaloa and NW Durango. The spoke a Tarachatitian language in the Southern Uto-Aztecan language family. Their culture was based on horticulture and the exploitation of wild animal and plant life...
tribe from western Mexico played a ball game called "vatey [or] batey" on "a small plaza, very flat, with walls at the sides".
Playing the Game
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés was a Spanish historian and writer. He is commonly known as "Oviedo" even though his family name is Fernández. He participated in the Spanish colonization of the Caribbean, and wrote a long chronicle of this project which is one of the few primary sources about...
and Bartolomé de Las Casas
Bartolomé de Las Casas
Bartolomé de las Casas O.P. was a 16th-century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar. He became the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians"...
(see picture to the right). The native name for the ball court and game was batey. Oviedo’s description of the balls is reminiscent of rubber
Rubber
Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...
or some kind of resin with rubber-like qualities; in all sources, some kind of reference is made to the unfamiliar bounciness of the balls.
The game
Game
A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
was played by two teams, each team consisting anywhere from ten to thirty players. Normally, the teams were composed of only men, but occasionally women played the game as well. Oviedo noted that sometimes men and women would play on mixed teams, men and women against each other, and the married women against unwed female virgins. Married woman wore a shawl wrapped around their bodies while the men and virgin women went bare. Archaeologists have noted a connection between the ball courts and the stone “elbow” and “neck” collars prominent in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
around the ball court sites. The function of these collars is not evident or explicitly detailed in historic accounts. However, it is interesting to note the similarity between the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
stone collars and the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
stone yokes that were worn by Mesoamerican ball game players as ceremonial belts.
Ball Petroglyphs
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
have been stolen by collectors or looters. There are two main types of petroglyphs: 1) geometric designs and 2) images representing human or animal forms (especially the “swaddled infant”). Rouse has described the petroglyphs as “human-like bodies and heads, of faces, and of geometric designs, several of which suggest the sun and the moon”.
The most common geometric designs are concentric circles, spirals and double spirals (clockwise and counterclockwise with three to five rings), single and double hooks, two triangles set together resembling butterfly wings, horseshoe-like symbols, and series of pits loosely grouped together. There are also multi-rayed solar emblems, lizards, iguanas, birds, animistic heads with rays emanating from the neck, mask-like “faces,” and a variety of other heads or faces (human and animal ranging from simple circles with three pits or rings for the eyes and mouth to stylized loops resembling petals or feathers). These petroglyphs can be directly compared in design and style with the petroglyphs seen in Northwest Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
and Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
.
The other most common image in the petroglyphs are grinning or grimacing, large eared, primarily zoomorphic “swaddled infants.” Although they appear to us as "swaddled infants", they actually represent ancestors who were wrapped in hammocks upon death. The images have limbless, rounded bodies that are sack-like at the bottom. Their ears are often exaggeratedly large and are presented in varying positions and shapes.
In Puerto Rico, the “infant” type and the geometric/curvilinear type tend to occupy separate village sites. Current archaeological data is inconclusive as to whether the designs were from two different time periods (the spiral groups are mostly in the mountainous interior where the infant type is much rarer) or if the designs represent a difference in religious symbolism
Religious symbolism
Religious symbolism is the use of symbols, including archetypes, acts, artwork, events, or natural phenomena, by a religion. Religions view religious texts, rituals, and works of art as symbols of compelling ideas or ideals...
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