A Miniature Ceremonial Ballgame Yoke from Mexico

Stephan F. de Borhegyi

American Antiquity, Vol. 31, No. 5, Part 1. (Jul., 1966), pp. 742-744.

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742 AMERICAN AhTTIQUITY [VOL.31, No. 5, 1966

COLLINS,
HENRY B., JR. waukee and was found, according to the donor, in the
1943 Eskimo Archaeology and its Bearing on the Problem of
Man's Antiquity in America Proceedings of the American vicinity of Papantla, Mexico, in Northern Veracruz in
Philosophical Society, Vol. 8k, No. 2, Philadelphia. the archaeological zone of Tajin. It is carved of greyish-
DE LAGUNA,FREDEHICA,FRANCIS A. RIDDELL,
DONALD F. MCGEEIN,
green colored, fine-grained andesite and, like the larger
KENNETH S. LANE,A N D J. ARTHURFREED,
LYJITH A C I ~ ~ P T EBY
R

CAROLYY
OSBORNE ballgame yokes, it is smoothly polished except or1 its
1964 Archaeology of the Yakutat Bay Area, Alaska bur eat^ of underside (Figs. 1 a, b, c). It is rhomboid in section and
American Ethnology, Bulletin 192, 'Washington:
was designed to rest horizontally on its narrower face.
Helzm, R. F. There is a slight medial bevel on the inside surface of
1944 Artifact Transport by Migratory Animals and Other the horseshoe-shaped opening and, while the upper edges
M e a ~ ~ sAmerica~i
. A n t i q u ~ t y ,Vol. IX, No. 4, PP. 395-1C0,
Menasha. of the yoke are sharply carved (Fig. I cr), the sides taper
NEVADA STXTEMUSEUM downward, and the bottom is gently rounded (Figs. 1 b,
Carson City, Nevada c). Whereas the horseshoe-shaped, open-ended stone
April, 1965 yokes of the gulf coast of Mexico are usually 45 cm. long
by 30 cm. wide, with an invariable opening of 16 to 18
centimeters (Proskouriakoff 1954; Covarrubias 1957: 171-
A MINIATURE CEREMONIAL
82), our miniature yoke is only 14 cms. long by 12 cms.
wide, and its opening is only 5 cms. (Fig. 3).
BALLGAME YOKE FROM

MEXICO
closed-ended stone yokes found in Mesoamerica and in
A unique, m ~ n i a t u r e horseshoe-shaped stone yoke
from Papantla, near Tajin in Mexico, is described and
illustrated. The undoubtedly ceremonial character of this
and other miniature yokes seems to strengthen the
hypothesis that the larger-sized stone yokes were used
primarily as p r o t e c t i v e gear by pre-Columbian ball
players.
A RECENT ACQUISITION of the Milwaukee Public
Museum is a horseshoe-shaped, open stone yoke from
Mexico which deserves special comment because of its
unusually small size.
The yoke (Mus. No. 53834/19550) was donated to the
Museum in April, 1965, by Mr. Robert Hubert of Mil-
By now it is g e ~ i e r a l accepted
l~ that the large open or
the Caribbean were worn on the hips of pre-Columbian
ballgame players during pre- or post-ballgame ceremonies
and possibly during the game itself (Eltholm 1949; 1961;
Borhegyi 1960; 1963; 1964). It is apparent, however, that
the miniature yoke illustrated here could not even have
been worn by a child. It is obviously a replica of its
larger brethren and was b rob ably used for ceremollial
or magical purposes, either as a burial offering or as part
of a cache offering in honor of the tutelary gods of the
ballgame to bring success to a supplicant. XVe know
from chronicler Diego D u r i n (1585), who wrote one of
the Spanish eyewitness accounts of this interestitig game,
that
.. . these gamblcrs by nightfall took the ball a n d placed it on a
clean plate with the leather loincloth a n d the gloves, hanging it
all on a pole and, crouching before these instruments of the game,

FIG. 1 [BORHEGYI].Miniature stone yoke. a, upper view of fine-grained andesite stone yoke from Papantla near
Tajin, State of Veracruz, Mexico. Milwaukee Public Museum collection No. 53834/19550. Length - 14 cm., width
- 12 cm., width of aperture -5 cm., height - 4 c n ~ . Classic Period. b and c, bottom views of yoke. Note tapering,
rounded bottom edges, medial bevel, and unpolished bottom surface.

FIG.2 [BORHEGYI]."U" shaped, small "curved stone,"
called "knee yoke," from the State of Guerrero, kiexico.
Private collection in New York. Height - 12 cm., width
- 13 cm. Middle Preclassic Period.
they worshipped them and spoke to them with certain words of
superstition and Incantations with much devotion, praying to the
ball that it should be favorable that day.
T h e size of the miniature yoke described in this article
makes it unique. T o my knowledge, no similar specimen
has heretofore been described or illustrated in the archae-
ological literature of Mesoamerica. It is obviously differ-
ent in shape and function from the so-called "knee yokes"
or "curved stones" described by Covarrubias from Vera-
cruz (1957, Fig. 72 second row). A typical "knee yoke"
from Guerrero is illustrated here as Fig. 2 for comparison
with our specimen. These "knee yokes," or "round
stones" are of Middle or Late Pre-Classic origin and may
have been tied to the players' knees In the manner ds-
picted on a ballplayer figurine from Tlatilco (Porter
1953, PI. 4; for a "U" shaped Middle Pre-Classic "round
stone" from Tlatilco see also Pl. 13, Figs. G, H ) . While
the so-called "knee yokes" conld have served as knee
protectors durlng the game, our yoke would certainly
not fit on the knee of any player, small or large.
Our miniature yoke may be more closely related in
function, though not in shape, to some of the small,
open-ended "curved stones" found at the archaeological
site of San Juan Ixcaquixtla in the state of Puebla. These
(Cook d e Leonard 1953: 472-3, Fig. 59) are of
calcite and were found in burials, sometimes in asso-
ciation with Early Classic Thin Orange ware sherds.
They range from 10 to 24 crns. in length, 14 to 27 crns.
in width, with an aperture of 18 to 26 cm. T h e fact
that most of the small yokes at Ixcaquixtla were found
in burials and are too small to fit even the hips of
children excludes the possibility that they were used as
toys.
A s in the case of the miniature mushroon~stones,
which were in most instances exact replicas of larger
mushroomstones (Borhegyi 1961), the miniature yokes
were probably used exclusively as ritual offerings. Like
the miniature mushroomstones, they will probably be
found o11lv in well-hidden ceremonial caches.
Until such time as similar specimens turn up in con-
trolled excavations, however, we can otlly guess that the
miniature stone yoke from Papantla is of Classic period
matiufacture and mas used ceremonially in some con-
nection with the pre-Columbiatl rubber ballgame. T h e
fact that miniature yokes were manufactured to serve as
crremonial offerings seems to strengthen the hypothesis
that their larger-sized counterparts were used primarily
as protective gear by pre-Columbian ballgame players.
Acknowledgn~ents. T h e author wishes to express his gratitude
to Mr. Robert Hubert for the donation of the specimen, to Dr.
Gordon Ekholm for his I~elpfulcomments, to Mr. Joseph Emielity
for the mineralogical identification, and to Mr. Leo Johnson for
the ~llotographs.
Boi~ir~aur,S T B I J I F.
~ ~DEK
1960 America's Ballgame. Natural Histoiy, Vol. 69, No. 1,
pp. 48-59. New York.
1961 h4iniature h4ushroom Stones from Guatemala. Ainelican
Antiquity, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 498-504. Salt Lake City.
1963 T h e Rubber Ball Game of Ancient America. Lore, Vol.
13, No. 2, PP. 44-53. Milwaukee.
1964 Pre-Columbian Ball-game Handstones: Rejoinder to Clune.
American Antiquity, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 84-6. Salt Lake
City.
COOKDE LEONIRD,C~llhlEN
1953 Los Popolocas de Puebla. In "Huastecos, Totonacos y
sus Vecinos" edited by Ignacio Bernal and Eusebio Davalos
Hurtado. Revista Mexicana de Esttidios Anthro~oldgicos,
Tomo 13. Nr. 2 6; 3, pp. 423-45. Sociedad Mcxicana de
Anthropologia, Mexico.
Co\ ,AI~RUBIAS,
MIGUEL
1957 Indian Art of Mexico and Csntrnl Amelica. Knopf, New
York.
1867-1880 Historia de las Indias de Ntieua-Espaila e Islns de
Tierra Fiime. 2 vols. J. J. Andrade y F. Escalante, Mexico.
1949 Palmate Stones and Thin Stone Heads: Suggestions on
Their Possible Use. A m e ~ i c n nAntiquity, Val. 15, No. 1,
pg. 1-9. Salt Lake City.
1961 Puerto Rican Stone "Collars" as Ball-game Belts. In
Essays in Pre-Collrmhinn A i t a n d Aichaeology, pp. 35G71.
Harvard University Press, Csrnbridge.
FIG. 3 [BORI-~EGYI]. Miniature yoke compared with
regular-sized stone yoke. Milwaukee Public Museum col-
lection No. 52625/18227.
744 AMERICAN
1953 Tlatilco and the Pre-Classic Cultules of the New \Vorld.
V~kingFtmd P~~blications in Anthro~ologj.,No. 19. Wen-
ner-Gren Foundation, New Yo&.
PROSKOURIAKOFP,TATIAN.,
1954 Varieties of Classic Central Veracruz Sculpture. Contri-
butions to American Arithropology and History, No. 58,
PP. 61-121. Carnegie Inst~tution of W'ashington Publrca-
tion 606. Washington.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
June, 1965
A CYLINDER SEAL FROM TLATILCO
A cylinder seal, apparently from the Olmec occupa-
tion at Tlatilco, is inscribed with what may be the oldest
writing known from Mesoamerica. T h e writing system is
unlike any previously known and is typologically more
advanced than other Iviesoamerican systems.
T H E CYLINDER SEAL reproduced in the accompany-
ing drawing and photograph (Fig. 1) was shown to me
by Lee A. Parsons of the Milwaukee Public Museum, to
which it belongs. It was found on the surface in the brick
works at Tlatilco about 1948, by Frederick A. Peterson,
and was rescued from certain destruction by the brick-
workers. It had apparently fallen from a large clay lump
which had been detached by the brick workers. Inside
the lump was a type "D" figurine. This clearly suggests
that the seal belongs to the so-called "Olmec" horizon at
Tlatilco.
T h e length of the seal is 8.5 cm., and the diameter is
3.5 cm. T h e seal is in three registers with one end com-
pletely preserved and the other partly preserved. Un-
fortunately, part of one register is broken away. T h e
other two are complete. All three registers clearly carry
sequences of arbitrary symbols which are surely parts
of a hitherto unknown writing system. I have not been
able to distinguish top from bottom nor to determine
direction of reading.
Except for the seal in Fig. 2 a, also said to have come
from Tlatilco, this is the first clearcut evidence of writ-
ing from the Valley of Mexico. Chronologically, it may
well be the earliest writing- known from Mesoamerica.
In a typological sense, insofar as it is possible to make
such judgments about an undeciphered system, it seems
more advanced than any of the other known Meso.
american systems. Most notable is the complete absence
of any recognizable pictographs. In later Mesoamerican
systems, the three dots ( i ) would stand for the number
t h r e e and the d o t t e d cross (+I+) w o u l d s t a n d for
Venus, as it did among the Maya. These symbols, how,
ever, are also known in Old World scripts. By them,
selves, neither of them is adequate to connect this cylin-
der seal with any other writing system.
Comparative evidence o n Preclassic writing in Meso-
america is scanty. The only sizeable corpus of materials
comes from the Zapotec area, principally from Monte
FIG.1 [KELLEY]. Cylinder seal from Tlatilco, Mexico.
a, photograph; b, roll-out drawing of seal impression.
Milwaukee Public Museum Photograph.
Alban. It has been published and analyzed by Caso
(1928, 1947). Zapotec glyphs show no important simi-
larities to this cylinder seal. Some of the Zapotec in*
scriptions come from Monte Alban I, but I have been
unable to determine hoar early writing appears in that
long period. If writing goes to the beginning of the
period, it might well be earlier than this seal, or of com-
parable age.
A t Kaminaljuyu, a very fine h4iraflores period monu-
ment has a fairly long inscription which may be in an
early form of the later Mayan script (Girard 1962, PI.
242). No other monuments with writing from this site
clearly belong to the Preclassic; there are few of any
date. A t El Baul, the famous Stela 1 has writing but is,
unfortunately, not certainly legible at some parts of the
famous date and is almost completely illegible except for
the date. The style is quite distinct from either Mayan
or Zapotec. The date seems closer to Olmec dates, but
there are differences, and the style of the accompanying
figure is not Olmec.
A more Mayoid monument is Stela 1, Santa Mar-
garita, Colomba, in Guatemala. This seems to have a
simple version of the Mayan Initial Series Introducing
Glyph followed by the number seven. Unfortunately, it
is completely illegible below this and, hence, offers noth-
ing of comparative value. At Chiapa d e Corzo, the frag-
mentary Stela 1 (Lowe 1962: 192, Fig. 7) shows a stand-
ing figure in a near-Maya style and a clearcut use of
place-value numerical notation. Of glyphs, only one cal-
endar glyph survives. The style of the numerical nota*
tion is remarkably similar to that of Tres Zapotes Stela C.
This latter monument has a late type of Olmec mask on
it and another date. If it could be established definitely
that El Baul Stela 1, Chiapa de Corzo Stela 1, and Tres
Zapotes Stela C are dates counted from the same base
as the later Mavan inscriotions, i.e. from 4 Ahau 8 Cum-
ku, the monuments could be placed in time within a
few years of each other, about two hundred years earlier
than the earliest known Mayan monuments (Coe 1957).
All, however, would seem to be late within the Olmec
period. None contains enough legible glyphic material
for a satisfactory analysis.