A rchaeological evidence suggests that the earliest farmers in the Sonoran Desert practiced a mixed subsistence economy in which foraging wild resources and farming tropical domesticates were of equal importance (Diehl

The pre-Hispanic ballgame was integral in the lives of ancient Mesoamerican communities. Today, modern ballgames closely resembling their pre-Hispanic antecedents are still played in different states throughout Mexico. Here I explore the links between the modern ballgame pelota Mixteca (Mixtec ball) and ethnic identity in Mixtecan communities in Oaxaca and the United States, using data from ethnographic interviews with pelota Mixteca players. I conclude that because cultural traditions are important influences in the (re)shaping of identity, participation in Oaxacan traditions like pelota Mixteca is critical to the creation of a pan-Mixtecan identity among migrant Mixtec groups in the United States. [ballgames, ethnicity, Mixtecs, Oaxaca]

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Pre-hispanic ballgames have an extensive temporal depth and geographical breadth across Mesoamerica, with over 1,500 ball courts recorded on 1,200 archaeological sites in Mexico alone. It is likely that ballgames played critical but variable roles in how communities related to each other. Most interpretations emphasize ballgames as cosmological rituals and legitimation practices exclusive to elites, perhaps often overlooking the more mundane sociopolitical processes and reasons why they carried such critical meaning for people of all classes and statuses. Ethnographic research on modern ballgames played by Indigenous and mestizo communities today can helpfully provide some insights or maybe deeper understandings into ancient ballgame practices and their relation to Mesoamerican communities. While modern games are not isomorphic with the ancient games, the duration of these traditions underscores their continuing importance and their relativity to current research. In this article I present the results of an ethnographic study of the modern ballgame pelota mixteca de hule (Mixtec rubber ballgame) in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Considering the results from the ethnographic data, I then discuss an archaeological case study in the Nejapa Valley of southeastern Oaxaca where numerous ballcourts were recently documented over the past decade.

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