download - IOA

the initiation of games cannot be reduced to "funeral games".
Antique sources like Ilias and Odyssee show that different reasons
led to the celebration of games. Sport as entertainment, for biological
instinctive necessity, as a preparation for war, hunt and
work, or simply as spare-time occupation and because of boredom
seem to be fluent for the epic poem writers. Also defenders of
the Agonistic thesis, which describe the Greeks as very enthusiasic
in competition and games, rather try to transport imaginations
of the 19th century (as the zenith Coubertin) with arguments like
amateurism, fairness etc. According to my opinion, literature shows
that the cultic beginning on one hand, and on the other hand
every function or purpose of the practised kinds of sports are to
be considered the origin. These, however, are only explanations,
showing the function of sports at certain periods of time in the
already started "instrumentalizing" of sports, but having less plausibility
in the question of origin.
It is useful to make the comparison with other, strange cultures,
in order to realize parallels to ancient High cultures, and to combine
ethnological research with early Greek sports as a part of an
anthropological constant. A quite long part in my paper is dealing
with material in regards to sportive actions or competition of
other ancient High cultures: Egypt, the region of the Middle East,
the Asiatic (India and China) region as well as Cretic, Mycenic
and Etruscic societies, but also precolumbion, nordamerican and
mesoamerican cultures. The most objective search and reflection
on sports as a cultural phenomenon shows the universality of
this behaviour with its different versions and with secondary developments
of every single culture. I tried to summarize the various
forms of sports such as physical exercises, play, competition,
body culture, dance, hunt, hippology, cult game, spare-time behaviour
and many more (for example football games in ancient
China, rubber ballgames of Mesoamerica,...). All these examples
from former High Cultures have the same reasons and functions
respectively. Sport - and game events took place for cultic, competitive,
for war - or hunt preparantion as well as for pleasure
reasons. Any thesis which wants to point out one of the mentioned
reasons as the origin of sports will end up in a blind alley.
16