What did the Maya do for entertainment?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

One common feature of Maya sites, probably inheritedfrom the Olmecs, was a long, rectangular court withsloping sides. The Maya used these courts for playinga ball game in which players tried to put a heavy, hardrubber ball through a stone ring set high on the sidewallor onto a kind of end zone, without using their handsor feet. The rubber balls, up to a foot (0.3 meter) in diameterand up to 15 pounds (6.8 kilograms) in weight,were made by adding the juice of a morning glory plantto the sticky sap of the rubber tree. Europeans and North Americans didn’t figure out how to make rubber untilthe mid-nineteenth century.

There is no evidence that women played the ball game;it consisted of either two men against each other or teamsof two to four members each. Some courts had skull racksalong their sides, suggesting an ominous reason for thegame. Archaeologists believe there must have been a varietyof occasions for the game—as a simple sport, as acompetition on which to place bets, as a ritual at the conclusionof treaties, and sometimes as a forced competitionbetween high-ranking captives, in which the loser facedimmediate torture and execution. The heads of the losersmay have been displayed on the rack, yet one more way toplease the gods by shedding human blood.

Besides the ball game, the Maya had another surprisingentertainment. For their children they created miniatureclay jaguars with their legs connected by clay tubes onwhich they attached clay disks, or wheels. In other words,they made wheeled toys without translating that idea towheeled vehicles for adults. Of course, without large domesticanimals to pull them, wheeled carts would not havebeen much use. Yet the wheel could have been used as apotter’s wheel or a water wheel to turn grinding stones, ifthere had been flowing rivers. There is no evidence that theMaya used the wheel for anything other than toys.

The Maya also enjoyed smoking tobacco, which theyused for recreation and for ritual. Detailed drawings ofthemselves and their gods smoking pipes have been found. Plant geneticists estimate that tobacco was first cultivated in the Peruvian–Ecuadoran Andes between5000 and 3000 BCE. Tobacco served as a feature commonto all American cultures except those in the Arctic; it waschewed, sniffed, eaten, drunk, smeared over bodies, usedin eye drops and enemas, and smoked. It was blown overwarriors’ faces before battle, over fields before planting,and over women prior to sex; and it was offered to the gods.It played a central role in the training of shamans; if takenin large doses, tobacco causes hallucinations, trances, andnear-death experiences, allowing the novice shaman todemonstrate his ability to overcome death.