Mariners of the Sun
The earliest known European references of a hockey-like game being played in the New World are found in 16th century Spanish accounts of the Araucanos Indians of South America. At first, the Spanish referred to this tribe as the "Aucas" meaning the people of the Eastern regions. This was a reference to their original place of habitation, present day Eastern Argentina. Later, as the tribe moved inland towards Chile, in response to Spanish and Portuguese aggression, they were renamed the Araucanos for the Arauco region of Southern Chile where they subsequently resided. So fierce were the Araucanos that they hold the distinction of being the only South American tribe to effectively defeat the Incas at the height of the Inca Empire. In addition, they were the only South American tribe never conquered by the Spaniards and their allies.
Proof of the linkage between the pre-Columbian Araucanos and the ancient peoples of the Mediterranean can be found in the Araucanos legend of the Great Flood as well as the religious significance placed in a hockey-like game of which they played. According to Araucanos legend, there once existed a great serpent that dwelled on the bottom of the sea. His name was Cai Cai. Cai Cai ruled all the waters. He wanted to rule the earth so he caused the rains to fall flooding all the lands. Warned of the impending flood, Ten Ten, the serpent of the mountains, told the Araucanos to seek refuge in the mountains. Unfortunately, many of the Araucanos were unable to reach high ground and died. After the water receded the surviving members of the tribe returned to the lands and created a new world. In memory of the great flood and their rebirth they celebrated by playing a game using a stick and a ball.
The Araucanos called their stick and ball game Chueca or the twisted one, a game which took its name from the curvature of the player's stick which was used to hit a small leather ball. In addition to being a ritual celebration incorporating prayers, dances and feasting, the Araucanos believed the sport was a great source of physical conditioning and warfare training. This early form of hockey was played between two teams over a flat field roughly three hundred-foot long by thirty-foot wide. At each end there was a designated line, which served as a goal marker. Played mainly for enjoyment, the Araucanos also used the game to settle differences between rival tribes in order to avoid conflict although the game itself would sometimes directly lead to warfare. In his study of the Araucanos, Father Diego de Rosales recorded the violence that could result from Chueca in his manuscript, Historia General del Reino de Chile, written between c.1652 AD and c.1673 AD. He wrote:
The most ordinary game is the Chueca . . . They hit a ball with some twisted sticks curved in one end . . . which have a natural curve at one end and is used as a mallet. They form two gangs to fight against each other to carry the ball, placed in the middle of a hole, to their own team until they take it out from the line, marked on both side . . They get a point when the ball goes through the line on their side. The game is over after six or four lines, and they can play a whole afternoon . . . After the game, they sit down to drink chicha and get completely drunk. Sometimes during these meetings, they come to agreements for uprising, because they call for other Indians from the whole Earth, and at night, they talk and agree on rebellions. Thus governors sometimes forbid this game and these meetings for the damages experienced. In order to be comfortable while running, they play the game naked, wearing only a loincloth to cover their indecency. Women sometimes play this game, but they wear some cloth, and they all attend to the field to see them play and run.
A question which has never been answered by historians or experts of South American Indian cultures is: "How did such a geographically isolated tribe possess a stick and ball game almost identical in rules, format, dress, and concepts to that of the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures?" The most obvious conclusion is the most controversial - the implied notion that at some point in the pre-Columbian past, the Araucanos were in contact with ancient old world peoples. Such a conclusion goes to the heart of popular history and modern beliefs. However, implausible as this theory may seem, proof in fact does exists showing a direct link. Aristotle (c.384 BC to c.322 BC), in his Minor Works, credits the Phoenician-Carthaginians with the discovery of a large island west of the Pillars of Hercules (the pillars being two mountains on each side of the Straits of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean). Aristotle states:
In the sea outside the Pillars of Hercules they say that an island was found by the Carthaginians, a wilderness having wood of all kinds and navigable rivers, remarkable for various kinds of fruits, and many day' sailing away. When the Carthaginians, who were masters of the western ocean observed that many traders and other men, attracted by the fertility of the soil and the pleasant climate, frequented it because of its richness, and some resided there, they feared that knowledge of this land would reach other nations, and that a great concourse to it of men from various lands of the earth would follow. Therefore, lest the Carthaginian Empire itself should suffer injury, and the dominion of the sea be wrestled from their hands, the Senate of Carthage issued a decree that no one, under penalty of death, should thereafter sail thither, and they massacred all who resided there.
Later, the Sicilian historian Diodorus, around c.100 BC, wrote of the Carthaginians and their accidental discovery of South America:
Over against Africa lies a very great island in the vast Ocean, many days' sail from Libya westward. The soil there is very fruitful, a great deal whereof is mountainous, but much likewise a plain, which is the most sweet and pleasant part, for it is watered with several navigable rivers. . . The mountainous part of the country is clothed with very large woods, and all manner of fruit trees and springs of fresh water . . . There you may have game enough in hunting all sorts of wild beasts . . . This island seems rather to be the residence of some of the gods, than of men.
Diodorus goes on to describe in detail how the Phoenician-Carthaginians had established a number of trading centers and colonies throughout the known world and had discovered the region of South America by chance when one of their West African merchant vessels had reached the Eastern South American shoreline after being blown off course during a fierce storm. The late Columbia University historian, Frederick J. Pohl in his 1961 book, Atlantic Crossings before Columbus, argues the Phoenician-Carthaginians were the first people to discover the Americas stating there is historical record of their circumnavigation of Africa. Pohl's argues based on detailed historical study and observations of what Diodorus wrote:
"Over against Africa" (not west of Gibraltar or west of Cadiz) strongly supports the idea of an Atlantic crossing; for if the Phoenicians crossed the ocean it must have been westward from Africa, as it was only there that the prevailing winds and currents would have made a westward crossing possible. Readers of course demanded that every voyage have a storm.
What is important to note from the Diodorus description is the detail and knowledge he displays in terms of South American geography. He describes a continent surrounded by water. He describes the southeastern rivers and the estuaries and the direction they flowed. More amazingly, he describes the entrance to the Parana River and the region of the Rio de la Plata near Buenos Aires and the lands of Great Plains and Andean Mountains near the junction of the Pilcomayo and Paraguay rivers areas, the traditional home to the Araucanos Indians.
The Phoenicians were the inventors of the ship's keel. They were also the first peoples to create streamlined ships which utilized complex sails and rigging. At the height of their empire, ships capable of transporting 100 tons of cargo moved regularly along the coastlines often traveling in excess of 100 miles a day. So advanced were these vessels that not until the 17th century would comparable ships sail the world's oceans. During the time of Hannibal, Phoenician-Carthaginian ships transported an army of Elephants across the Mediterranean to aid in the war against the Romans. Hannibal would use these mammals to cross the Alps Mountains a feat that to this day is considered one of the great logistical marvels of the ancient world.
If one argues the point of contact between the old and new worlds, based on the historic records of Aristotle and Diodorus were the lands inhabited by the Araucanos, then as the game took root in South America it would have spread northwards into the regions of Central and North America. In effect being a South-North migration. Given what we know of the ancient trade routes among the tribes of the Americas, and archaeological dating of native artifacts and settlements, such a theory seems plausible. This theory is also consistent with the fact that the South American tribes were among the most developed of all the New World groups. Discovered on the cliffs of the Bay of Paracas in Peru is a 600-foot carved Tree of Life. This ancient symbol of early Near Eastern religion and ancient hockey stands like a cairn in the face of critics who contend that South America was void of old world contact prior to the arrival of the Spanish. In addition, at Copan, Honduras, archaeologists have found a stone carving of an elephant headdress dated to at least c.750 AD, though likely much later, evidence yet again, of a Mediterranean connection.
Over the last two centuries, archaeological discoveries in both Central and South America have continued to produce evidence of New and Old World links. At Chichen Itza, a Mayan city located on the Yucatan Peninsula, archaeologists have documented the images of lotus blossoms carved on the walls of an encircled sports field. The images of lotus blossoms raise much interest in archaeological circles for the fact that no such flower is native to that region. Instead, the lotus blossom is both a native plant as well as a religious symbol of eternal life and common image found on the walls of ancient buildings and tombs of the Mediterranean. Again at Beni Hasan we find images of the lotus on the tomb wall of Prince Kheti.
In Mayan religion the earth is symbolized in the form of a ball court. It is an arena where man confronts the powers of life, death, and rebirth. It is on these ball courts that the Mayan's played a game called Chaah. The Mayans believed Chaah was part of an elaborate religious ceremony reenacting the story of creation. According to the Mayans, the heroes of the story were descendants of a feathered serpent named Kukulcan. Around c.800 AD the Mayan game witnessed a transformation from its earlier form. The stick and ball play declined in popularity and was replaced by a violent soccer-like game using a larger ball. Stone circles or hoops, attached to the sides of the stone playing field walls, were also added.
In total, over 600 ball courts have been unearthed in Mexico alone evidence of the game's widespread play and religious significance. Not counting the ancient game of hockey, there are over 230 cultural similarities between the peoples of Central and South America and the peoples of the ancient Mediterranean. Among the similarities one finds are the Tree of Life, the creation story, bird-and-serpent legends and the worship of the Sun God.
