It is one tough sport! And it is growing in popularity throughout the
state of Oaxaca and beyond. Pelota Mixteca, or Mixtec Ball, traces its
roots back to the ceremonial ball playing that existed among all the
pre-Colombian cultures of the New World.
Every Saturday and Sunday a group of hardy players and enthusiastic fans gather in Chila (15 minutes from Puerto Escondido on the highway to Acapulco) to practice this ancestral sport. At the town's 50th Annual Fair on the weekend of Feb. 8 and 9, you can watch a serious tournament featuring teams from far and wide. Matches are held all over the state, and the game is even played in the U.S., where Oaxacan emigres keep the tradition alive.
The rules of the game have changed over the centuries; the scoring in
the game is now based on tennis, for example, and it is rare for the
losing team to get ritualistically sacrificed. But, seriously, the
resurgence of Pelota Mixteca is another manifestation of how tenaciously
the Oaxacans maintain their ties to the indigenous cultures of the
distant past.
The game is played with a large natural-rubber ball (hule:, rubber was one of America's gifts to the world) that weighs about 2 lbs. Teams of five to seven players pound the ball back and forth using elaborately decorated gloves that weigh between 7 and 12 lbs. The ball can only bounce once. The winners team must take five sets of three games, each game consisting of four points. The grueling matches can last for as long as four hours.
The gloves are custom made using pressed leather, beaded and studded with nails to achieve the desired weight. Players pay as much as 2,000 pesos for them.
We're uncertain if the official rules oblige the copious amounts of
mezcal typically consumed.