Ulama () is a ball game played in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, currently experiencing a revival from its home in a few communities in the

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

Sinaloa Sinaloa (), officially the (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, compose the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 18 municipalities, and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales. It is located in northwest Mexic ...

. As a descendant of the

Aztec The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...

version of the

Mesoamerican ballgame The Mesoamerican ballgame (, , ) was a sport with ritual associations played since at least 1650 BC by the pre-Columbian people of Ancient Mesoamerica. The sport had different versions in different places during the millennia, and a modernized ...

, the game is regarded as one of the oldest continuously played sports in the world and as the oldest known game using a rubber

ball A ball is a round object (usually spherical, but sometimes ovoid) with several uses. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players. Balls can also be used for s ...

History

The word ''ollama'' comes from the

Nahuatl Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

word ''ōllamaliztli'' from ''ōllama'' (playing of a game with a ball), related to the word ''ōlli'' (rubber, rubber ball). ''Ōllamaliztli'' was the Aztec name for the Mesoamerican ballgame (meaning roughly ''the process of playing the ball game''), whose roots extended back to at least the 2nd millennium BC and evidence of which has been found in nearly all

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El S ...

n cultures in an area extending from modern-day

El Salvador El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...

, and possibly in modern-day

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

and

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

.Fox, John
''The ball : discovering the object of the game''
1st ed., New York : Harper, 2012. . Cf. Chapter 4: "Sudden Death in the New World" about the Ulama game. Archaeologists have uncovered rubber balls dating to at least 1600 BC, ballgamer figures from at least 1200 BC, and nearly 1,500 ancient ball courts. Due to its religious and ritual aspects, Spanish

Catholics The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

suppressed the game soon after the

Spanish conquest The Spanish Empire, sometimes referred to as the Hispanic Monarchy or the Catholic Monarchy, was a colonial empire that existed between 1492 and 1976. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It ...

. It survived in areas such as

, where Spanish influence was less pervasive. As part of its nationwide revival, the game now has a home in the capital

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

, at a cultural centre in the

Azcapotzalco Azcapotzalco ( ; ; from ''wikt:azcapotzalli, āzcapōtzalli'' “anthill” + ''wikt:-co, -co'' “place”; literally, “In the place of the anthills”) is a Boroughs of Mexico City, borough (''demarcación territorial'') in Mexico City. Azcap ...

neighborhood.

Gameplay

Ulama games are played on a temporary court called a ''tastei'' (, from ''tlachtli'' , the Nahuatl word meaning "ballcourt"). The bounds of these long narrow courts are made by drawing or

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...

ing thick lines in the dirt. The courts are divided into opposing sides by a center line, called an ''analco''. A ball that is allowed to cross the end line, the ''chichi'' or ''chivo'', will result in a point scored for the opposing team. Points or ''rayas'' ("lines", so named for the

tally marks Tally marks, also called hash marks, are a form of numeral used for counting. They can be thought of as a unary numeral system. They are most useful in counting or tallying ongoing results, such as the score in a game or sport, as no inter ...

used to keep score) are gained in play. The scoring system provides for resetting the score to zero under certain conditions, which can make for lengthy games. The modern-day game has three main forms: * ''Ulama de cadera'' or hip ulama. A hip ulama team consists of five or more players (but there could be as many as twelve) wearing loincloths, with leather hip pads for some protection against the heavy (3–4 kg, around 7–9 lb) rubber ball. * ''Ulama de antebrazo'' or forearm ulama. Played on a smaller field, with teams of one to three players and a ball lighter than that of hip ulama, the games require the players to return the ball using their wrapped forearm. Women often play this game. * ''Ulama de mazo'' or ''Ulamad de palo'', in which a heavy (6–7 kg or 13–15 lb) two-handed wooden paddle strikes a 500g (1 lb) ball, usually in teams of three or four. The object of the game is to keep the ball in play and in-bounds. Depending on the score and the local variant of the rules, the ball is played either high or low. A team scores a point when a player of the opposing team hits the ball out of turn, misses the ball, knocks the ball

out of bounds In sports, out of bounds (or out-of-bounds) refers to being outside the playing boundaries of the field. The legality of going out of bounds (intentionally or not), and the ease of prevention, vary by sport. Sports that use this term include Am ...

, touches the ball with any part of the body aside from the hip, accidentally touches a teammate, lets the ball stop moving before it reaches the center line, or even if they fail to announce the score after they have scored a point. The first team that scores eight points wins. If both teams end up having the same number of points after a turn, both sides begin again from zero. One record-setting game reportedly lasted for eight days. Most modern games are stopped after about two hours. Weiditz Trachtenbuch 010-011

Ulama balls

''See also Mesoamerican rubber balls''

Sports governance

Associations

In Mexico and the United States, ulama de cadera is governed by Asociación de Juego de Pelota Mesoamericano (Mesoamerican Ballgame Association) or AJUPEME, which is a non-profit ulama sports association founded by Armando Uscanga and Reyna Puc. The organization has two branches in each of the respective countries: AJUPEME Mexico and AJUPEME USA. In Belize, ulama de cadera is governed by the Belize Hipball Association.

International tournaments

The Pok-Ta-Pok World Cup began in 2015, in

Chichen Itza Chichén Itzá , , often with the emphasis reversed in English to ; from () "at the mouth of the well of the Itza people, Itza people" (often spelled ''Chichen Itza'' in English and traditional Yucatec Maya) was a large Pre-Columbian era, ...

, Mexico. The tournament is organized by the Central American and Caribbean Ancestral Mayan Ballgame Association (ACCDAPM).

Notes

References

*
Ulama
accessed October 2007. * (1978) ''Ulama, the Perpetuation in Mexico of the Pre-Spanish Ball Game Ullamaliztli''. Leiden. * *

External links

The Mesoamerican Ballgame Ulama

Article on Ulama
from the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

(archived by Wayback Machine) {{Team Sport Mesoamerican sports Ball games Team sports Ancient sports Sport in Mexico Sports originating in Mexico Aztec pt:Tlachtli