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Holy patolli! We plan to develop the ideas behind Patolli in new interactive games and fun resources. Watch this space...!

A Game of Patolli, anyone?

Players of the Aztec board game Patolli praying to the god Macuilxóchitl (‘Five Flower’ - god of all games) (Written/compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

Patolli player in the Codex Mendoza

The game involved simple counters made of beans and was a game of chance similar in many ways to Ludo. Note however the religious and astronomical significance of the numbers involved: four directions and 13 spaces = 52 (the number of years in the Aztec ‘bundle of years’ or century)/pp (Main image from the Codex Magliabecchiano, info from ‘The Aztecs: People of the Sun’ by Alfonso Caso)

‘Bets were made on the player who could best handle the dice, which were five or six black beans, each of which had a number painted on it... If, in the course of play, a participant threw the “dice” beans in such a way as to make one of them stand on its side, it was regarded as a great event. The lucky thrower then won all the costly goods waged on the game, whether or not his opponent had the opportunity to make his moves’. (Info from ‘The Essential Codex Mendoza’ by Frances F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt)

The Spanish Dominican friar Diego Durán recorded that, before throwing the dice the players rubbed them between their palms, and in the act of throwing they called out the name of the patron god of the game; don’t we still rub the dice and call out ‘Come on, give me a double six!’?

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