Don’t Let It Fall

I learned about peteca and immediately thought: Wait. Isn’t this basically kemari?

There is a Brazilian expression: não deixar a peteca cair. Literally, it means: don’t let the peteca fall.

Peteca is a game of Indigenous Brazilian origin. Players hit a small feathered object into the air and try to keep it from touching the ground.

The point is not to make the other person lose. The point is to keep the peteca in the air.

That sounds simple, but it changes the structure of the game.

In tennis or badminton, a point is scored when the rally breaks. Someone fails to return the ball or shuttlecock.

Peteca is different. The pleasure is in keeping it going. The game exists as long as the rally continues.

As an expression, não deixar a peteca cair means something close to “don’t drop the ball.” Keep going. Don’t abandon what needs to be held.

Kemari is an old Japanese court game where players kick a ball and try to keep it from touching the ground. No opponents. No score. Just continuation.

Peteca and kemari come from very different places. One from Brazil’s Indigenous cultures. One from Japan’s aristocratic court.

I am not saying they are historically connected.

They may simply show that humans, in different places, have found joy in the same basic idea:

Don’t let it fall.

Sometimes the most interesting part of a game is not winning. It is keeping something alive in the air, just a little longer.