Can you imagine the feeling of watching a human sacrifice in a crowd of 10,000 people? Or watching the king pierce his own penis with a stingray spine? The blood! And still-beating hearts! The collective empathy induced by these powerful experiences, specifically the affective resonance, would be a powerful binding force. Especially when combined with the pounding music and (occasionally) psychedelics [1].

Wikipedia has a nice article on Mayan human sacrifice [2]. It all sounds so brutal, but then again, so is Squid Game.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogenics_and_the_Maya

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Maya_cultur...