Paluc

The Paluc spread throughout the central part of the American continent during the first centuries AD,
however there are no reliable historical sources on its real antiquity as they were lost with the invasion
of the Spanish who, especially with regards to the Mayan tradition , caused cultural havoc, leaving very
little to posterity compared to what was available at the time.
According to the first Spanish chroniclers, however,
gambling seemed to be widespread everywhere among
the pre-Columbian populations, especially among the
Maya and the Aztecs. There are many descriptions of
the Aztec Patolli, and this is thanks to the excellent work
of two Spanish missionaries who learned the Nahuatl
language and studied Aztec sayings, habits, customs and
theogony. Thanks to the work of the Dominican friar
Diego Durán and the Benedictine Bernardino de
Sahagún many of these ancient testimonies have come
A game of patolli under the supervision of the god Macuilxochitl down to us. But they were very little, let us remember
that most historians of the time, and especially the friars
who went to the New World to bring the word of Christ, were of no interest in studying and examining
in depth the historical-religious and cultural links of the games and of the populations that practiced
them. In fact, the Spanish simply banned traditional games and supplanted them with those imported
from Europe.
The games in which corn seeds or beans (in the Aztec language: petol, from which the name of the
game derives, patolli) were used as dice, however, were very common in American antiquity and have
never been completely eradicated from arrival of the culture of the Old World, so much so that in
some regions of Belize, among the Mopan people of ancient Mayan lineage, it is still used today to play
bul, also known as puluc or Paluc.
The mechanics and cultural aspects of these pre-Columbian games were studied during the 20th
century, thanks to the historian Stewart Culin who described the bull played by the K'ekchi' Maya of
Alta Verapaz in Guatemala; the ethnographer Karl Sapper in turn described a similar game, called
puluc, which he had observed both with the K'ekchi' and with other tribes of central North America.
R. C. Bell himself took Sapper's description to build a playable Paluc mechanic, described in his 1960
"The Book of Board Games".
However, none of these testimonies speak of the variants mentioned by Lieve Verbeeck in his 1998
study, all of which are very interesting, but probably of very recent origin; nor did the authors of the
early 1900s ever refer to the ceremonial character of the game which Verbeeck reports as direct
testimony to his experience in Belize among the Mopan.
In Bell's book, Paluc is classified as a "fighting and running" game, one of the subclasses of the "war
games" category, however this limit is not clear since, following de Voogt's classification, all four the
descriptions of the Maya board game fall to all intents and purposes in the class of war games, based on
the aim of destroying the opponent and due to this nature, therefore, it presents basic mechanics that
are completely foreign to the classic European and Basin games of the Mediterranean, making it unique
in our eyes.

In the eyes of the Spanish conquerors, who did not

pay much attention to the differences between the
Maya, Tarasco, Tlaxaltecs and Aztecs, it could
represent a board version of the Aztec tradition
called "flower war" or "war of flowers", whose aim
was to capture prisoners to be sacrificed to the gods,
since all the Meso-American peoples, and in
particular the Maya and Aztecs, had bloody cults that
involved human sacrifices. Everything was culturally
immersed in a magical-esoteric mix whereby being
sacrificed to the divinity became a source of pride
and honor rather than terror and sorrow. However,
in their proud ignorance, the conquistadors also 2023 archaeological discovery of a Mayan stone scoreboard, probably for
caused a lot of confusion. scoring points in a game.

But it is almost certainly from this ritual and ceremonial aspect that the characteristic of not having a
defined number of players derives; in reality, the important thing is that they are in even numbers to
divide into two factions, or teams, fighting for the supremacy of one or the other party.

READ THE MAYAN DICE

The Mayans and Aztecs used to use corn kernels blackened on one side or black beans with a white dot
marked on one side. After the landing of the conquistadors, these tools were replaced by Spanish coins,
although the use of corn grains still remained in vogue in some remote villages in the jungle.
In some cases, fragments of obsidian have also been found engraved on one side with a skull motif,
which we reproduce in wood, with only one darkened side.
The light side of the skull counts 1, the dark side counts 0. Having 4 dice you count the light sides that
come out.
If 4 dark sides come out then the score obtained is 5.

PURPOSE OF THE GAME

The purpose of the Paluc, in addition to its ritual nature, is to capture all the pawns of the opposing
faction.
 GAME RULES

Paluc does not have a limit of players, as long as they are always equal to divide into two factions.
Two players roll the dice to determine which side starts the game. The side of the player who launched
the highest score begins.
1. The two factions start from opposite sides of the board, where the insignia of their village is
depicted. The squares in the middle are the battlefield.
2. The turns alternate by faction, within the turn of a faction all the players who are part of it,
counterclockwise (from left to right), roll the dice and make their move. Then it's up to all the
players on the opposing side.
3. Each player has two throws per turn and moves his pawn after the second, advancing it based
on the score obtained on the first or second throw, as desired.
4. Each player can only put one piece into play at a time, as long as it moves around the board
they cannot put other pieces into play.
5. If the result of one of the two rolls allows you to move to capture an opponent's piece, the
result of the other will be used to return to your village. If the result of one of the two rolls
allows the player to bring the pawn (and possibly all those captured by it) to his village, he can
use the result of the other roll to immediately return to the game.
6. If a player reaches the opponent's village with a pawn without having been captured, he goes
back towards his own village, also taking advantage of any remaining dice rolls.
7. To enter your village it is not necessary to make an exact score.
8. When, by moving a pawn, a player ends his movement on a space occupied by an opponent,
the latter becomes his prisoner. On the next move, the player moves his pawn and all captured
pawns beneath it in the direction of his village.
9. The player who lost the piece will be able to put a new piece on the field in the next turn.
10. Every time a player captures an opponent, they move directly backwards towards their village.
This can happen as many times as you want, both with a single pawn and with a stack of
captured pawns, and determines the movement towards one village or another depending on
who commands the stack (the player whose pawn is on top to all) at the time of that launch.
11. Even a stack of tokens can capture another stack.
12. Once the warrior pawn arrives in the village with the entire pile of captured pawns, those of the
same faction are returned to their respective players, while the opposing ones remain out of the
game, prisoners.
13. Only pawns of the same faction are allowed to stay in the same space. If an opposing pawn
ends its movement on a space with multiple pawns, it captures only one as desired by the
player.
14. In the event that there are multiple players per faction, if a player loses all his pieces, he does
not lose the roll: he continues to roll the dice to help his teammates who will move according to
the convenience of their faction.
15. The game ends when one faction captures the last pawn of the opposing faction.
 GAME’S VARIATIONS

The basic game, among the Mopan of Belize, is known as aj sayil, little ant, there are also four known
variants and they are all inspired by the names of local animals.
They all affect the tactics of moving and/or taking the opposing pieces.
Of all the variants presented, only the Fire variant can be applied in addition to the rules you intend to
follow.

Applicable variants
1. Eagle variant.
This is the fastest variant: when you capture an opponent's piece, it and the piece that made
the capture immediately exit the game. The captured pawn is eliminated, the one that made
the capture can be put back into the game starting from the village on the following turn.
2. Scorpio variant.
In this variant the pawns can move indiscriminately back and forth on the board to capture
their opponents; however, even here to keep the opposing faction's pawns prisoner you
must return to your village.
3. Red Ant variant
Red ants are famous for their aggression and in this way of playing the pieces, even if they
have captured enemy pieces, they continue to move along the board towards the
opponent's village and only when they pass it, landing in their own, do they free the
prisoners of the their own faction and eliminate the captured pawns of the opposing
faction.
4. Fire variant.
This game variant is assumed to be the most recent, but still has its roots in history. The
box in the center of the board shows a symbol, for the Mopans it represented fire and the
pawns that fall into that box are destined to burn, thus they are eliminated from the game,
together with any prisoners.

THE ADVICE OF THE DODO

The Dodo advises you not to get carried away and not to empathize too much, nowadays human
sacrifices are not considered legal!