Evening star., 1937-10-17
BY WILLIAM LA VARRE.


Three hundred years before Column
bus discovered America, Americans
were playing basket ball. My wife and
I stood beneath the limestone walls
of the ball court, at Chichen liza, and
looked up at one of the carved stone
baskets. On the limestone walls of
the court there were ancient drawings
and hieroglyphics which told our ar
theological associates that here played
the Mayans in bloody combat here
played the warriors of Chichen Itza
against all comers from far Mayan,
Toltec or Aztec cities And death
often overlook the hindmost.
Half of the ancient metropolis of
Yucatan has been reSurrected from
the jungle. The Carnegie Institu-
tons scientists have cut down for
ests, replaced fallen stones and now
every tourist can see the Temple of
Kukulcan, the Mayan Observatory,
the Temple of the Warriors, the House
of the Wise Men and the Palace of the
Virgins. But in the midst of the an
cient metropolis. beneath the En-
peror's throne, the walled ball court
attracts the most wanderers and Won
dererS.
The stone walls extend $50 feet
along stone court. They are 35 feet
high. The basket" on either side. is
a vertical limestone ring, and through
this stone ring the ancient Mayans
had to knock a rubber ball. I say
knock, but batter might be better
term; no man could touch the Tlachtli
ball with his hands. Heads shoulders,
hips and knees were the battcring
rams ordinarily used, although there
is one drawing which shows Mayen
warrior sending the ball aloft from an
unusually big nose. But, without
using the hands, it was Americas first
h-as-catch-can ball game.
Knew Secret of Rubber.
Before civilization discovered how to
vulcanize rubber the ancient Magyar
craftsmen Of Yucatan knew that rub
Der tree gum could be cured by smoke
and sulphur, and their Tlachtli ball:
we're so fine in texture that many OF
them have been preserved through COZ
years of weathering. The acoustic.
OF the ball court are so perfect that
a mans voice re-echoes back and forth
between the high walls IL times
Three hundred thousand ancients livet
in Chichen ItZa, and on Tlachtli days
there must have been a great soune
and fury!
The Mayan Emperor sat on hi,
serpent throne, above the court, arc
Msyan warriors in gold ornament
and humming bird feathers festooneo
every foot of bleacher space. Sever
players on each side provided the en-
tertainment. Seven players from the
city Of Chichen Itza and seven players
from challenging city.
Basket ball today is growing box
Office sport. The winners make the
most money and achieve cashable
fame. The losers take the small per-
centage. But in the Mayan days the
losers got nothing but ignominity and
often, death. The team that won
Especially if it was the home team)
Immediately turned upon the losers
calling the audience to participate
and very few of those Of the defeated
team ever lived long enough to think
Of an alibi One time-worn carving
shows 13 contestants lying dead on the
ground and one lone victor butting
with his head the victorious goal
Some fun!
Today's Game Sissy.
There's a man in the United States
who says that he invented the game
of basket ball. He first played it, he
claims, with fruit basket nailed to
the side of barn. The game took
hold of more and more observers and
now 1t has spread over the United
States to such an extent that there
are more basket ball players than
foot ball, base ball, hockey and tennis
players combined. But, judging from
the ancient drawings which embcllish
the walls of the ball court at Chichen
TIA, today's basket ball game is a
pretty sissy game. Nobody gets
killed.
Five hundred years ago the ancient
Americans of Yucatan considered the
game game of vengeance. If they
had difficulty in staging a tournament
they solved it by making up teams
among captive enemies. The man
who thinks he invented basket ball
ought to go to Yucatan and look at
the old drawings which were carved
on the Mayan ball court at Chichen
TIA over 500 years ago!
copyright, 1879