page_title: History of games
section_title: Americas
hierarchical_section_title: History of games / Pre-modern / Americas
caption_attribution_description: English: This picture depicts a game of patolli overseen by the god Macuilxochitl from page 048 of the Codex Magliabecchiano
context_page_description: The history of games dates to the ancient human past. Games are an integral part of all cultures and are one of the oldest forms of human social interaction. Games are formalized expressions of play which allow people to go beyond immediate imagination and direct physical activity. Common features of games include uncertainty of outcome, agreed upon rules, competition, separate place and time, elements of fiction, elements of chance, prescribed goals and personal enjoyment.
  Games capture the ideas and worldviews of their cultures and pass them on to the future generation. Games were important as cultural and social bonding events, as teaching tools and as markers of social status. As pastimes of royalty and the elite, some games became common features of court culture and were also given as gifts. Games such as Senet and the Mesoamerican ball game were often imbued with mythic and ritual religious significance. Games like Gyan chauper and The Mansion of Happiness were used to teach spiritual and ethical lessons while Shatranj and Wéiqí were seen as a way to develop strategic thinking and mental skill by the political and military elite.
context_section_description: Archaeologist Barbara Voorhies has theorized that a series of holes on clay floors arranged in c shapes at the Tlacuachero archaeological site in Mexico's Chiapas state may be 5000-year-old dice-game scoreboards. If so this would be the oldest archaeological evidence for a game in the Americas.
  Dice games were popular throughout the Americas. Patolli was one of the most popular board games played by mesoamerican peoples such as the Mayans, Toltecs and Aztecs, it was a race game played with beans or dice on square and oval-shaped boards and gambling was a key aspect of it. The Andean peoples also played a dice game which is called by the Quechua word pichca or pisca.
  One of the oldest known ball games in history is the Mesoamerican ballgame (Ōllamaliztli in Nahuatl). Ōllamaliztli was played as far back as 1,400 BC and had important religious significance for the mesoamerican peoples such as the Maya and Aztec. The game evolved over time but the main goal was to keep a solid rubber ball in play by striking it with various parts of the body or with tools such as rackets. The game may have served as a proxy for warfare and also had a major religious function. Formal ballgames were held as ritual events, often featuring human sacrifice, though it was also played for leisure by children and even women.
  The indigenous North American peoples played various kinds of stickball games, which are the ancestors of modern Lacrosse. Traditional stickball games were sometimes major events that could last several days. As many as 100 to 1,000 men from opposing villages or tribes would participate. The games were played in open plains located between villages, and the goals could range from 500 yards (460 m) to 6 miles (9.7 km) apart.
caption: Patolli game being watched by Macuilxochitl as depicted on page 048 of the Codex Magliabechiano
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