Violent Games - And You Thought Football & Hockey Were Violent

Discussion in 'Sports & Recreation' started by Ken Anderson, Apr 20, 2018.

  1. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    I can't attest to the accuracy of these purported facts, other than that I am not making them up, largely because I don't know how they could have known some of this stuff, but here are a few games that appear to be more dangerous than football and hockey.

    The Ancient Aztecs and Mayans played a game that was quite a bit like lacrosse, and that is apparently where the game of lacrosse came from. One difference was that if your team lost, your captain had his heart removed and passed around for fans to eat.

    Another game played by the Aztecs and Mayans was called ullamaliztli, which was played with a heavy, solid rubber ball. Like soccer, you couldn't use your hands to control the ball, but you couldn't use your feet either. Teams batted the ball around using their hips and buttocks. As for the losing team, see above.

    After ransacking a village, the Vikings would sometimes use a game of tug-of-war to decide who gets the plunder. The teams would face off on either side of a fire. I'm not sure what kept the rope from burning, but it could get awfully hot for you if you were on the losing end.

    Pankration was an Ancient Greek wrestling match, but there were no rules or clothes. Fighters could kick, scratch, wrestle, choke, or punch. It was considered bad form to kill your opponent but you were still the winner.

    Soule was a game played in Normandy, Brittany, and Picardy from the 12th to the 19th centuries. Two teams of up to a thousand players would have to get a large ball into the opponent's net or onto their side. The game commonly got violent, and it could last for several days because the goals were several miles apart, separated by farmland, forests, meadows, rivers, and so on.
     
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  2. Patsy Faye

    Patsy Faye Supreme Member
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    How do we know what the Aztecs and Mayans did ........... :confused:
    Video games have caught up though :rolleyes:
     
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  3. Don Alaska

    Don Alaska Supreme Member
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    Apparently folks used to get killed playing hockey in the early days of the sport. Lacrosse was considered the most violent sport still played, but now is played mostly by women--something changed.
     
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  4. Patsy Faye

    Patsy Faye Supreme Member
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    Yea - the women ! Gotta show how tough they are :rolleyes:
     
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  5. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    Another version of the Olmec game was introduced (perhaps just an evolution of the same game) whereby they had players of 2 to 4 men who could again only control the ball with their buttocks, hips, upper arms and thighs.
    There was a stone ring placed on one of the walls surrounding the court in which the opening in the ring was only a bit larger than the ball. If anyone perchance made the ball through the ring they were immediately deemed the winner but apparently that rarely happened and the winner was decided by points more often than not.
    From what the Spaniards wrote, those going to the game would often bet their entire household and even put themselves and their families up to either be slaves or perhaps a winner of a new slave or two.
    And from what I also read, it was the Spaniards who eventually made the game illegal because the outcome was considered a religious abomination due to the fact that the loser's were sacrificed in the arena directly after a game, their heads were placed on a pike along side the arena and the blood was offered as food for the gods.

    Apparently there was no such thing as an award for participating..............
     
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