Puluc

Puluc is an ancient Maya racing game played on a linear track of 11 spaces. Each player races 5 pieces from their end toward the opponent's end. Rules follow the Brewster/Acosta version.

1. Stick Dice: throw 4 sticks — each lands blank or marked. Count the marked sides for your move. All blank or all marked = move 4 spaces.
2. After rolling, click a highlighted piece on the board (or your entry zone) to move it. Your entry zone is on the left; your pieces move right.
3. Enter new pieces: click your entry zone (left side) to bring a waiting piece onto the track at the rolled distance.
4. Capture: if your piece lands on an opponent's piece, you capture it — it becomes a prisoner carried under your piece. The stack moves together.
5. Releasing prisoners: if your stack is captured, all prisoners you held are freed back to their owner's entry pool.
6. When your stack exits the far end, any prisoners it carried are also released back to the opponent.
7. Win condition: first player to move all 5 of their pieces off the far end wins.

Puluc is a traditional game of the Kekchi Maya people of Guatemala and southern Mexico, with roots stretching back thousands of years into pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The game was documented by ethnographers including Terrence Kaufman, and later analyzed by Vivan Acosta and others who studied the game among contemporary Maya communities in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala.

The stick dice — flat wooden sticks painted on one side — connect Puluc to a broader family of lot-casting games found across the Americas, from the Aztec patolli to the board games of the ancient Mississippi cultures. The dramatic prisoner-capture mechanic mirrors the importance of warfare and captive-taking in Maya ritual and political life, where capturing enemies alive was often more valued than killing them.

Unlike many ancient games, Puluc has never fully disappeared. It continues to be played in Maya highland communities, passed down through generations as both a game and a form of cultural memory. Its survival is a testament to the resilience of indigenous cultures in the face of centuries of colonialism and erasure.