ulli = "rubber" Re: Olmecs

[micc at home.com]

i beleive it means rubber.....Also I faintly remember reading somewhere
(or was it a bad dream after eating too much molli?)
that the "olli" in colli has to do with roundedness ( as in coltzin,
coliuqui, etc.)

Matthew Montchalin wrote:
>
> Susana Moraleda wrote:
> |>It is said that the Olmecs were the inhabitants of Olman,  (place of
> |>rubber - "ulli").  Would anyone know what was the role of rubber in
> |>their lives?
>
> Bernard Ortiz de Montellano wrote:
> |The ball game was a very important part of Mesoamerican  world view, and
> |began very early. The oldest Olmec ball court found is  dated 1400 B.C.
> |Rubber balls have been found in the Olmec swampy site of El Manati.
> |
> |Dorothy Hosler has recently published a paper showing thst the techniques
> |natives use to make rubber is the same as that reported in early colonial
>
> Does "ulli" mean rubber, or the rubber ball that one plays with?
>
> I can't help but notice that the verb olOloA means 'roll into a ball'
> with uppercase denoting long vowels.  Is there a connection between
> these words?