Closed yoke

Mesoamerican ballplayers wore various items of protective gear to prevent injuries that could be caused by the impact of the heavy, swiftly moving ball. Stone sculptures such as this yoke are likely representations of those constructed of lightweight, perishable materials, such as wood, cloth, and leather.

The yoke’s sides bend inward from the apex of the curve to a flat, closed base. They are covered with a complex design featuring the double-edged scrolls frequently seen on Veracruz portable sculpture and architectural ornamentation. The scrolls do not intertwine to form a continuous design as is often the case (see, for example MMA 1979.206.423). Instead, they are one of a number of separate motifs that include eyes with feathered brows, serpent scales, and, on the closed end and apex of the curve, motifs that may represent the feathers covering the serpent’s body. Together these suggest, rather than represent, the feathered serpent of Mesoamerican mythology. Feathered serpents are among the most common composite animals depicted in ancient Mesoamerican art, combining the powers of the air with those of the earth. In Classic Veracruz art, they are associated with both the sacred ballgame and noble power, in scenes of the ballgame-related rituals and the walls of the courts themselves at the great Gulf Coast city of El Tajín (Koontz, fig. 2.6).

Closed yokes are among the earliest ballgame sculptures and were usually left undecorated (see MMA 69.237). The manner in which the design overlaps the deep ridges to either side of the closed end of this yoke suggests that the relief decoration may have been added later, perhaps during the Late Classic period when open yokes and other ballgame regalia were routinely covered with intricate designs. It is unlikely that closed or open yokes or any other ballgame-related stone sculptures, called hachas and palmas (see MMA 1978.412.151, 1979.206.425) could have been worn during active play. They show no possible form of attachment, and their weight alone could have hindered the players’ movements. It is even less likely that a closed yoke such as this one could have been worn at all, and so they lend credence to the argument that these are stone sculptures meant to commemorate the game and its players, intended for ritual display and as mortuary offering.

Patricia J. Sarro 2025

Further Reading

Ceremonial Sculpture of Veracruz. New York: Long Island University, 1987.

Earley, Caitlin C. "Stone Sculpture and Ritual Impersonation in Classic Veracruz." Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 54 (2019), pp. 8-25, fig. 5.

Ekholm, Gordon F. "The Probable Use of Mexican Stone Yokes." American Anthropologist 48:4:, pp. 593-606, 1946.

Koontz, Rex. Lightening Gods and Feathered Serpents: The Public Sculpture of El Tajín. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009.

Leyenaar, Ted J.J. Ulama, Jeu de Balle des Olmeques aux Azteques - Ballgame, from the Olmecs to the Aztecs. Lausanne: Musée Olympique, 1997.

Proskouriakoff, Tatiana. "Classic Art of Central Veracruz." In Handbook of the American Indians, edited by Gordon F. Ekholm and Ignacio Bernal, vol. 11, pp. 558-571. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971.

Scott, John F. "Dressed to Kill: Stone Regalia of the Mesoamerican Ballgame." In The Sport of Life and Death, The Mesoamerican Ballgame, edited by E. Michael Whittington, pp. 50-63 New York: Thames and Hudson, 2001.

Shook, Edwin M. and Elayne Marquis. Secrets in Stone: Yokes, Hachas and Palmas from Southern Mesoamerica. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1996.

Thompson, J. Eric. "Yokes or Ballgame Belts?". American Antiquity 6:4, pp. 320-326, 1941.

Wilkerson, S. Jeffrey K. "Un Yugo ‘en situ’ de la Región del Tajín." Boletin 41:41-45. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1970.