In Mixtec pictographic manuscripts, ballplayers frequently appear as high-ranking individuals linked to the political elite. Important figures such as Lord 3 Ollin, in the Codex Bodley, and Lord 8 Deer, in the Codex Colombino and Codex Bodley, are depicted playing the ballgame. In one scene, 8 Deer plays against 6 Jaguar, while in the Codex Nuttall the Mixtec lord faces 6 or 7 Serpent. Some interpretations suggest that these matches may have formed part of diplomatic processes through which military agreements, exchanges, and power relations were negotiated among Mixtecs, represented with red and yellow facial paint, from different groups, particularly in their interactions with the Nahuas, who are depicted with black facial masks and curly hair.
In pictographic sources, the architecture of ballcourts displays iconographic conventions such as frets, projecting stones, and inclined lines. Likewise, certain representations preserve the use of colors such as red, green/blue, yellow, brown, white, and black, although it cannot be stated that this palette was symbolically associated with concepts such as cardinality.