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Evidence for Chonka
1 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.1482
Type Ethnography
Location 6°55'33.58"N, 79°51'29.14"E
Date 1909-01-01 - 1909-12-31
Rules 2x7 board, with two stores. Seven counters per hole. The first player may choose the direction of sowing, which must be maintained throughout the game. Sowing includes the player's store, which is the store following the last hole in the player's row, according to the direction of sowing. When the final counter of a sowing falls into an occupied hole, the counters in that hole are picked up and sowing continues. When the final counter of a sowing falls into an empty hole, that counter is captured along with any counters in the hole in the opponent's row opposite it. When the final counter falls into the player's store, the turn ends. The player who first captures half of the counters wins.
Content "Pallankuli or Chonka. This game, as played in Colombo by Sinhalese, Tamils, and Muhammadans is a very different one from those just described. Seven cowry shells, termed 'Dogs,' are placed in each hole as a preliminary, or 98 in all. Play may begin at any hole on a player's own side of the board, and may go round either to the right or left, the same direction being maintained throughout the game. The shells are 'sown' as usual, but the play differs from all the Kandian games in this-that each player after placing a shell in the last hole of his own row, puts the next one in his surplus hole for captured shells, called 'Tachi,' and then continues to 'sow' in the same manner as before, along the holes on his opponent's side of the board. He does not place any shells in the opponent's tachi. The shells in both the tachi cannot be captured. If his last shell fall in an empty hole, he captures both that shell and those in the opposite hole on the other side of the board. In this case, and also when the last one falls in his own tachi, his turn is ended, and the opponent then plays in the same way. When the last shell falls into a hole containing others, all, unless it be the tachi, are taken out and sown as before. The game ends in one round, and the winner is the person who first finishes his shells.
Confidence 100
Spaces Inside
Source Parker, H. 1909. Ancient Ceylon. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services.
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