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Evidence for Sümi Naga Game (Hunt)
1 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.1679
Type Ethnography
Game Sümi Naga Game (Hunt)
Location Nagaland
Date 1921-01-01 - 1921-12-31
Rules 5x5 intersecting lines, with diagonals drawn in each quadrant. One player plays as four tigers, which begin on the four corners of the board. The other player plays as twenty goats, which begin off the board. Play begins by placing one of the goats on an empty spot. The other player then moves the tiger to an empty adjacent spot along the lines on the board. The tiger may hop over an adjacent goat, if the space immediately on the opposite side of it in a direction along the lines is empty. Play continues like this until all of the goats are placed, after which the goats also move to one adjacent spot along the lines. The tigers win by capturing all of the goats; the goats win by blocking the tigers from being able to move.
Content "The board is made by drawing a square and joining up the opposite corners diagonally. The sides are then bisected and the middle points joined to the middle points first of the opposite, then of the adjacent sides. In this way the square has been cut up into four smaller squares, each divided by intersecting diagonals. Through these points of intersection four more lines are drawn, two vertical and two horizontal, again bisecting the sides of the four inner squares.
This gives altogether 25 points of intersection, and the game is played with 24 pieces, which are placed on these points and move along the lines joining them to the adjacent
points. One player has four pieces (bits of stone, beans, anything will do), known as “ tigers,” and these are placed one at each corner of the board. His opponent has 20 similar pieces called ‘‘ goats,” and his object is to place them on the board, and to move them when there, in such a manner that the “ tigers ” are rounded up and prevented from moving
at all. The “ goats ” may only move in a direct line to the next point of intersection, and the ‘‘ tigers ” are similarly restricted unless there is a goat at an adjacent point and an empty point beyond it in the same straight line, when the “ tiger ” may “ eat ” the goat by jumping over it as in draughts. The player of the “ tigers ” must move one of his pieces for every “ goat ” placed on the board by his opponent, and when all the ‘‘ goats are out the parties
must make alternate moves...The above diagrams show the board used in both games,
the tigers being first placed on the four outer corners of the board shown in the first diagram, when the player of the goats starts introducing his pieces along the outer edges in such a manner as to avoid, as far as he can, giving an opening to the tigers to eat any of the goats. The game is a simple one, but affords considerable scope for the exercise of skill and foresight in playing it." Hutton 1921: 110-111.
Confidence 100
Source Hutton, J. 1921. The Sema Nagas. London: Macmillan.
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