<!-- Deleted image removed: thumb|300px|right|Artist illustration of a batey complex. -->Batéy was the name given to a special plaza around which Indigenous Antilleans, including the Taínos and Ciguayos, built their settlements. It was usually a rectangular area surrounded by stones with carved symbols (petroglyphs).
The batey was the area in which batey events (e.g. ceremonies, the ball game, etc.) took place. The batey ceremony (also known as batu) can be viewed from some historical accounts as more of a judicial contest rather than a game. Because historical accounts of the game and court space come from (mostly Spanish) European explorers, the true nature, history, and function of the batey is still contested. Neighboring tribes may have used batey matches to resolve differences without warfare.
Distribution
Bateys are found in Turks, Caicos, St. Croix, Dominican Republic, The Bahamas, eastern Cuba, Haiti, and "the largest number of known ball courts are to be found in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands".
Batey origins
There is no consensus as to whether the batey ball game in the Caribbean was independently developed in different regions of the New World or whether it diffused from one or more locations. The large centrally located cemeteries in Saladoid villages served as plazas like those seen in the lowland communities of South America.
The ceremonial and religious significance of the later-developed ball game appears to indicate a connection with the Mesoamerican ball-game, and it has been argued that the batey ball-game of the Caribbean is a simplified version of the Maya pok ta pok, specified to the culture and religion of the Taíno. It is possible that the route of diffusion of the game of pok ta pok and other elements of Mayan culture was not a direct one from the Yucatan to the Caribbean, but an indirect one by way of South America, because the Otomacos in South America also played a similar game.
thumb|200px|right|[[Bartolomé de las Casas]]
The majority of the documented information about the ball game specific to the Caribbean islands comes from the historic accounts of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés and Bartolomé de las Casas (see picture to the right). The native name for the ball court and game was batey. Oviedo's description of the balls is reminiscent of rubber or some kind of resin with rubber-like qualities; in all sources, some kind of reference is made to the unfamiliar bounciness of the balls. There are two main types of petroglyphs: 1) geometric designs and 2) images representing human or animal forms (especially the “swaddled infant”). Rouse has described the petroglyphs as “human-like bodies and heads, of faces, and of geometric designs, several of which suggest the sun and the moon”.