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Evidence for Bheri Bakhri
1 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.1509
Type Ethnography
Location Garhwal
Date 1926-10-01 - 1926-10-31
Rules 3x8 board. Eight pieces per player, which start in the spaces of the outer rows of the board. Four cowrie shells used as dice, the number of mouths face up being the value of the throw. A throw of 1 grants the player another throw. A player must throw 1 for the first move of each of their pieces. Players may only play with one piece out of the home row at a time and cannot move the next of their pieces until the piece being played has been captured. Throws of 1 must be used to move a piece in the home row, if possible. Pieces move from left to right in the player's home row, then from right to left in the central row, left to right in the opponent's home row, and right to left in the central row. When a piece lands on a space occupied by an opponent's piece, the opponent's piece is captured. The player who captures all of the opponent's pieces wins.
Content "Bheri-Bakri. The game of bheri-bakri (sheep and goat) is played two
persons with 16 pieces equally divided between them and 4
pieces of cowries for the purpose of throw. The 16 pieces re-
present the sheep and the goats and those representing the
goats are usually of a white colour and those representing the
sheep are usually of a black colour. By means of the vertical
and the horizontal lines the rectangular-diagram used for the
play is divided into 24 compartments and of them 8 belong to
each player as shown above. The pieces are arranged in the
order as indicated in the diagram and their movement is
regulated by the result of the throw of the cowries, the result
being described as poa, do, tin ot car — i,e., the number of
points gained— according as the number of , cowries which show
their mouths up after each throw is one, two, three, or four.
When no cowrie shows its mouth up after a throw, the player
gets no point to his credit. After the players have arranged
their, pieces in the way as indicated above, in the diagram, they
begin to throw the cowries and when a player gets a poa to his
credit, he is able to remove the piece- lying in the compartment
marked , 8 to the next one lying in the - middle row which
,ay. be distinguished as the neutral row. After, a piece
has been moved from its original compartment to that in the
neutral row, a player (say A) can move it from one compartment to another, the number of movements being regulated by
the number of points gained, i.e. if he has 3 points in his
favour, his piece will occupy the. third compartment unless it
is already occupied by a piece of his adversary E in which case
the latter piece will be captured by A whose piece will now
occupy the compartment thus made vacant. Whoever of the
two players succeeds in capturing all the pieces belonging to
his adversary is the winner. The rules that have to be observed while playing this game are the following: —
1. A player who has a poa to his credit is entitled to have
a second throw of the cowries.
2. When there is no point to the credit of a player, i.e.,
when the mouth of no cowrie is seen after a throw, the next
throw passes on to his adversary.
3. One player can play only with one piece at a time i.e.,
the piece occupying the compartment No. 8 has to be brought
out first and must be captured by the other player before the
former player can bring out the piece occupying the 7th compartment of Ms own row.
4. For all points of one, i.e., poa, the requirements of the
pieces lying within the player’s own row of compartments must
be satisfied first and before all the pieces have been shifted from
one compartment to another, the piece which is out of the
player’s row of compartments may not be moved for a throw
that gives to the player credit for one point only, i.e., poa.
5. No piece may be moved from its original compartment
unless the player to whom the compartment belongs has got
a pod to his credit. Thus if the piece No. 8 belonging to a
player foe captured and if the piece No 7 has not been
previously shifted by him owing to his not having secured
already a pod necessary for the purpose, it (the piece No. 7)
shall be moved only when he succeeds in getting a pod to his
credit and the other throws in the interval, canning other
values, are of no avail to him.
6. A player’s piece, when out of his own row of compartments, has to be moved from right to left in the neutral row
and from left to right in that of his adversary. It can never
be made to enter the player’s own row but must be moved
only in the other two rows spirally in the directions as mentioned above and also indicated in the diagram.
7. The pieces of the player are to be moved gradually
from a lower number to a higher one and to the neutral zone
only from the compartment marked 8. " Das Gupta 1927: 298-299.
Confidence 100
Source Das-Gupta, H. 1927. "Two Types of Sedentary Games Prevalent in British Garhwal." Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 23: 297-299.
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