Aztecs score a stone goal
QUESTION What games were played on the Mesoamerican ball courts, which date back to 1300BC?
On THEIR arrival in the new World, the Spanish conquistadors discovered games played with balls made of rubber, a substance unknown in Europe.
The Aztec civilisation flourished between 1300 and 1521, and ball games were integral to their culture.
There was a long tradition of such sports across Mesoamerica, which covers Central America and the southern part of north America.
There were many variations, but most required keeping the ball airborne for long periods using elbows, knees, head and especially hips, and scoring a goal in a stone ring. The game was as much about ritual as sport.
The earliest evidence comes from Paso de la Amada, guatemala, where archaeologists excavated a ball court dating to 1400 BC.
The Aztec version was played on the tlachtli or tlachco in the shape of a capital ‘I’. The central court was enclosed by a paved or plastered sloped area surrounded by 10 ft-high walls.
The court was between 100ft and 200ft long, with a centre line and six markers along the walls. At the centre of the court, attached to the walls, were two stonecarved rings often ornately carved in the form of an animal or god.
Dominican friar Diego Duran wrote that the objective of the game was to keep the 3 in-diameter rubber ball in constant motion. Aztec and earlier Mayan sculptures and ceramic vessels depict ball players in a distinctive posture poised to hit the ball with their hip.
Players probably scored points by striking the coloured markers. The aperture in the stone ring often wasn’t much larger than the ball so passing it through this would result in the conclusion of the game.
Fouls were given if the ball struck the wrong part of the body, such as the hand or foot. In some areas, players used wooden paddles to hit the ball.
The game had a semi-religious element: the ball represented the sun, moon or stars while the rings represented the sunrise, sunset or the equinoxes.
Emma Valentine, Harpenden, Herts.
QUESTION How did Charnock Richard village and motorway service station come by its unusual name?
THIS civil parish in Chorley, Lancs, has a population of only 1,700, but the nearby M6 motorway services has made its name nationally famous.
The village may take its name from the Charnock family who arrived in England shortly after the norman Conquest. Their name is derived from the town of Chernoc in normandy. By the early 19th century, there were more than 1,000 families named Charnock in Lancashire.
Richard was added to the name when Richard de Chernok wanted to distinguish the land he owned from the neighbouring township of Heath Charnock.
His name features in the Assize Court Rolls of Lancashire in 1246 when he appears as a witness in a legal matter, possibly concerning poll tax, and is referred to as ‘the Frenchman’.
Among the better known Charnocks are John, executed for treason in 1586 after the abortive Babington Plot, and Robert, who built the impressive timber-framed Astley Hall nearby.
The male family line died out with the death of another Robert in 1653.
Ian MacDonald, Billericay, Essex.
QUESTION Has a defence of sleepwalking been used successfully in court?
THE first successful use of sleepwalking as a defence was at the trial of Albert Tirrell in Boston, Massachusetts.
He had left his wife to live with a prostitute called Maria Bickford, who was found dead, having had her throat cut, in October 1845. His defence lawyer, Rufus Choate, successfully argued that Tirrell had been suffering from a nightmare or trance when he killed Bickford and he was found not guilty.
In 2003, Jules Lowe, 32, killed his 83year-old father, Edward, in Manchester. They had been drinking at home before the attack and were on good terms.
Lowe did not deny the violent attack, but said he was not aware of his actions because he was in a state of automatism or sleepwalking.
Before the trial, Lowe underwent sleep studies carried out by Dr Irshaad Ebrahim of the London Sleep Centre.
The jury were convinced by the evidence and he was found not guilty of murder on the grounds of insanity.
S. L. Brotherton, Little Aston, Staffs. KILLIng someone while asleep was used successfully as a defence in 1961.
I was 14 at the time, and the barrister who convinced the jury to acquit was a youth club leader at my church in Colchester, Essex.
Vivian gerald Hines, who was later a High Court judge, defended U.S. Staff Sergeant Willis Boshears, 29, who was stationed at RAF Wethersfield, near Dunmow, Essex.
On new Year’s Eve 1960, Boshears met 20-year-old Jean Constable and a male friend of hers in a pub. The three returned to his flat, and around midnight the male friend left. The next morning, the American awoke to find the woman dead next to him. She had been strangled.
‘Vg’, as I knew him, argued that Boshears had not knowingly killed Ms Constable. The jury agreed and he was acquitted.
Sir Bob Russell, Colchester, Essex.
QUESTION Does Hollywood self-censor?
FURTHER to the earlier answer about removing footage for the Chinese audience, a reverse example was the brief inclusion of the nine-dash line in the 2019 Dreamworks animation Abominable, despite having no relevance to the film.
This is the demarcation line used by China for its claim in the South China Sea, which has been denied by the Un Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The film has been banned in Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Chloe Bennett, Salisbury, Wilts. IS THERE a question to which you want to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question here? Write to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT; or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection is published, but we’re unable to enter into individual correspondence.