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Evidence for Pasang
1 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.2239
Type Contemporary rule description
Location Brunei
Date 1973-01-01 - 1973-12-31
Rules 11x11 intersecting lines, with the central nine points out of play. Diagonal lines connect the corners of the central square of the board to the outer corners. Played with two to four players. Black and white stones fill the board, alternating color, with black in the corners of the board. The first player captures one of the stones on one of the corners of the board. Subsequent moves involve capturing a stone by hopping over it with an adjacent stone to an empty space. Multiple captures are possible, but only one, three, five, or seven are allowed in a turn. If an even number of captures is possible, the final capture cannot be taken. Players are not required to capture as many as may be possible. The game ends when no more captures are possible. The player with the highest score wins: black stones count as one, white as two.
Content "Pasang. Pasang was played by women in the kampongs of Brunei, especially during the night-long ceremonies attending circumcision, initiation, and marriage. Two, three, or four players could take part. The board was made of hard wood, cmmonly kayu balian, mengaris, salangan batu or malangai. The playing surface was formed by a grid of scratched lines with the points of intersection converted into shallow cups. In the centre of the board occupying nine points was a store (gadong) about four and a half inches in diameter used to hold the balls (buah). The board had a raised border one inch wide and half an inch high to protect the balls from accidental displacement during play. Pasang boards varied in size and the number of cups, depending upon the wood available: frequently they had eleven by eleven lines, making 121 points of intersection, but the central nine points were covered by the store, leaving 112 cups for play. There were 56 white balls over half an inch in diameter and worth two points (kayu). The same number of black balls were slightly smaller in diameter and worth one point. One player arranged the balls on the board according to her fancy, or according to one of the many recognised and named opening patterns: Broken into Pieces (Figure 10); Youth; Running Cloud; Sticking Flower; Flower in a Vase; Chicken Leg; Ascent to a Palace; Composed Flower. When the initial arrangement of the pieces was complete the player called kas (start). Rules for Playing 1. The opening player began nby lifting a ball from any of the four cups at the corners of the board and placing it into her store. 2. The turns of play then passed clockwise to the next player on her left, who lifted one of the three possible pieces to jump over a piece into the vacant cup. The piece passed over was lifted and placed in her store. 3. Pieces could only move by making a short leap. More than one short leap could be made in a single turn of play, and the capturing piece could change direction, including along a marked diagonal. As pieces were captured they were removed from the board. 4. A player could only capture one, three, five, or seven balls in a turn of play. If two, four, or six were at risk, the turn finished short of the last piece, only three or five being removed from the board. 5. A player was not obliged to make all the captures possible in a move, onr to take the greater number of pieces if two or more formations were at risk. There was no huffing. 6. When no more captures were possible the game was finished, and any balls left in isolation were dead. The winner was the player holding the highest score in her store, white balls counting two points and black balls one point." Bell 1973: 19-21, who says "The author is indebted to the curator of the Brunei National Museum for obtaining an article written in Malay on pasang; and to Mr Rashid of the Department of Physiology, Singapore University, for translating it into English" (Bell 1973: 2).
Confidence 100
Spaces Ritual
Genders Female
Source Bell, R. 1973. Discovering Old Board Games. Aylesbury: Shire Publications.
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