Sports, Gambling, and Government: America's First Social Compact?

Abstract

The presence of a 3,600-year-old ballcourt in the Mazatan region of Southern Mexico implies that a significant connection existed between ballcourts, competitive sport, and the emergence of the first ascriptive societies in Mesoamerica. We explore four likely connections between the Mesoamerican ballgame, rank society, and early government. These include gambling, playing the game, sponsorship of the game and its associated activities, and the effects of team sports on community identity. Ethnographic information from tribal societies is reviewed with respect to the social roles of competitive games and their effects on egalitarian society. We consider the idea that community identity, or communitas, can become embodied in a small group of people or individuals who sponsor sport, its associated rituals, and the construction of sporting facilities. These individuals may subsequently gain higher status within both their communities and their regions. This finding adds sport and competitive gaming to the growing list of processes that anthropologists should consider in exploring social transformations. [Mesoamerica, social complexity, ballgames, community identity] American Anthropologist 103(2):331-345.

Early evidence of the ballgame in Oaxaca, Mexico

“…Not coincidentally, the ballgame appeared around the same time as rank or chiefly society and has been implicated as central to the processes of social differentiation (4,5). The earliest depiction in monumental art of public leaders, the Early Horizon colossal heads of the Olmec, has been interpreted as sporting headgear related to the ballgame (6). Portable clay figurines of elites in ballplaying gear are found at the Olmec center of San Lorenzo as well as in contemporaneous societies across Mexico.…”

“…Indeed, the expectation was that the earliest games were played on demarcated fields, not on constructed courts (13). This assumption was challenged by the discovery of an Early Formative ballcourt dating to 1600 BCE at Paso de la Amada, an early ceremonial center in the Soconusco region of coastal Chiapas (6). The earthen ballcourt, essentially two parallel range mounds with benches flanking a central alley, was constructed before, and possibly aiding, the emergence of ranked society at Paso de la Amada, associating formal ballcourts with complex societies (6,16).…”

“…No contemporaneous ballplayer figurines came from the site (5), indicating that costume and associated paraphernalia had yet to be codified and that the ballgame had not yet assumed the significance seen during the subsequent Early Horizon. Hill and Clark (6) suggest that the ballcourt was part of a network of similar but undiscovered ballcourts in Early Formative Soconusco, with the ballgame interpreted as one facet of conflict and competition linked with hereditary leadership and nascent political inequality.…”

Los Orígenes Del Privilegio en El Soconusco, 1650 A.C.: Dos Décadas De Investigación

“…El Montículo 7 está localizado a menos de 200 m al norte del Montículo 6 y parece que fue construido un poco después que la primera casa de allí. La cancha del juego de pelota se consideró en su tiempo la construcción más grande en Mesoamérica, y debió haber requerido por lo menos 1,400 personasdías laborales para construirla (Hill y Clark 2001). La presencia de esta cancha temprana y otras evidencias del juego de pelota en otros lugares de Mesoamérica (Ortiz y Rodríguez 1994) indican que el juego con pelota de hule tuvo sus orígenes en una institución del Arcaico Tardío.…”

The Social and Psychological Impacts of Gambling in the Cree Communities of Northern Québec

“…Gambling is a traditional activity of Aboriginal societies throughout the Americas (Gabriel 1999;Hill and Clark 2001) with documented use in ceremonial, recreational, political, and diplomatic events as early as 1000 years before Europeans arrived in North America (Belanger 2011;Dion et al 2010). In small isolated communities in the Cree territory, gambling has traditionally brought people together in a social activity that redistributed wealth within a closed system.…”