#ulama

players of the mesoamerican ballgame

illustrations on facing pages of a costume book, bavaria, late 16th c.

“By Allah, I am pleased with this trial, and all praise is due to Allah! I see victories unfolding.”

O Allah, free Your servant Sulaymān al-‘Alwān, grant him steadfastness, relieve his distress, and grant him victory over those who have wronged him.

بُلُوغُ رَمضانَ نِعمَةٌ كَبِيرَةٌ عَلى مَنْ بَلَعْهُ وَقَامَ بِحَقِّهِ بالرجوع إلى ربِّهِ من معصيتهِ إلى طاعتهِ، وَمِنَ الغَفْلَةِ عَنْهُ إِلَى ذِكْرِهِ، ومِنَ البُعْدِ عَنهُ إِلَى الْإِنَابِةِ إِلَيْهِ

Reaching Ramadan is a great blessing upon the one who reaches it and fulfills its rights by returning to His Lord from disobeying Him to obeying Him, being heedless and neglectful of Him to remembering Him, and being distant from Him to turning to Him with repentance.

The perennial "Sportsball Is The Dumb" make me think it might be worthwhile to acknowledge some really cool localized sports that don't normally get much attention.

Starting with a classic: Stickball (lacrosse is just a shortened "le jeu de la crosse", so 'stickball' but, yanno, in French) is from tribes all over N. America. The only standard rule was players couldn't grab the ball by hand and you weren't allowed to intentionally punch someone in the face. There are more rules now, but the core game remains. This is the Kullihoma Tournament in OK, 2013.

Shinny is related to lacrosse, and it's also the mother of field hockey and played by tons of N. American Natives. This shot on the left is from St. Mary's Mission School in Red Lake, MN (Jillian Gandsey | Bemidji Pioneer). The shot on the right is from Rolf Clements of The Ponca City News. The Ponca also have a Facebook page for "Ponca Tribe Yearly April Shinny Games" to find out more.

Kataw is from SE Asia particularly Laos. It's volleyball, only with a small and stiff rattan ball kept in the air using only the player's feet. (photo credited in image).

Ulama descended from the Aztec 'ballgame' and is predominantly in Mexico. Basketball meets volleyball meets soccer, where the ball is hard rubber & is kept off the ground using hips and forearms.

A more modern, but extremely entertaining one I want to include just because it's fun is: Kabaddi which originated in Tamilnadu, India. It is the national sport of Bangladesh. A sort of full-contact game of tag, teams of seven try to tackle the person who's "it".

And another fairly modern sport, but with some significant indigenous spin, is the Panamanian Volleyball being played by gender fluid peoples from the Guna Yala region in the northeast.