The idea of the game is for the player to get the ball through the stone rings or markers set on either side of the court, even though the ball could only be touched with hips, elbows and knees by players who wore protective clothing made from leather, wood, wicker and cotton to cushion the impact. Some players even wore stone yokes around their waist.
According to the usual explanation, the ball game was a competitive sport played to avoid physical sacrifice where the heads of defeated enemies, captives, or potential team captains were severed, yet scholars still can’t decide if it was the winning or losing team members who lost their head in human sacrifice. That is certainly one way of looking at it, but what if instead we look at it from a higher scale?