Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/220

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

203

line of squares, then continuing along all the outside squares, until he returns to E; thence up the middle squares to the round central space. He who first brings his 4 pawōïhs into the central (dalam or bungòng rayeuʾ) is the winner.

The four throws to which distinctive names are given have, as it is called, a "younger brother" (adòë); that is to say they give the privilege of a fresh throw, but a player may not throw more than three times in succession, and after a throw that has no name the turn passes at once to the next player.

After each throw the player may choose which of his four pieces he will advance. The chief obstacle on the way to the central space consists in this, that when one player's pawōïh reaches a square on which another's is already standing, the latter must retreat to his starting-point (A, B, C or D); it is only in the squares marked thus × which are called bungòng (flower) that several pawōïhs are allowed to stand at once and take their chance.

The tiger game.Certain other games which enjoy a great popularity in Java also under the name of machanan or the "tiger-game" and some varieties of which resemble our draughts, are known

in Acheh under the generic name of meurimuëng-rimuëng ("tiger-game"). Although the actual origin of this game is no longer known, there can be no doubt of its having been introduced from India as is shown by the description in the Qanoon-e-islam of Herklots Appx. pp. LVIII and LIX, Plate VII, Fig. 3 of two games commonly played in Southern India. Indeed the figure on which according to Herklots the Mogul and Pathan[1] game as it is called in South India, is played, is precisely the same as that on which the Achehnese play the tiger-game we shall first describe and the Javanese another variety of the same. Herklots also mentions another game called Madranggam[2], played on the same board or figure, and which he calls "four tigers and sixteen sheep".


  1. Mogol-Puttʾhān.
  2. Mudranggam.