|
Evidence for Len Doat
1 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.1696
Type Ethnography
Location Thailand
Date 1836-01-01 - 1836-12-31
Rules Four 3x5 grids, arranged in four corners of a rectangular board. Three pieces per player. Five cowrie shells used as dice; the value of the throw equaling the number of the mouths which land face up. Players begin by entering their pieces onto the board from the square in the central row of the grid to their right. A single piece may be entered with a throw of 1, or all of the player's pieces may be entered with a throw of 5.Throws of 1 and 5 grant the player another throw, and a pieces are moved only after all of the players throws are made. Play proceeds down the central row where the pieces entered, in an anti-clockwise direction until reaching the bottom right hand corner of the left grid, at which point the track continues on the opponent's side of the board from the top right corner of the left board (with respect to the current player), proceeding around the opponent's grids in an anti-clockwise direction until reaching the top left square of the opponent's right grid. At this point, the piece returns to the player's own right grid, on the bottom left corner, and proceeding in an anti-clockwise direction into the central row, and off the board once moving past the final space. When a player lands on a space occupied by an opponent's piece, the opponent's piece is removed from the board and must re-enter as before. Pieces are safe from being sent back when resting on the left two corners of each grid on the left and the right two corners of each grid on the right. The first player to remove all of their pieces from the board wins.
Content "Len Doat resembles the Indian game of puchees. It is played with cowrie shells on a lacquered board thus. Two persons take each a side of the board. There are five cowrie shells for a dice, each of the players has three pieces-each throws in turn, and if No. 1 or No. 5, casts up, the thrower continues to throw and to play until another number turns up. The chief object is to pass through all one's own squares and those of the opposite party without interruption-taking his men if they can be overtaken by throwing a corresponding number and leaping over them if the number cast up exceeds. He whose pieces are thus first returned to the place whence they set out, wins the game. Nos. 6, 15, 17, and 26 in each side are castles, and the piece holding one of these cannot be taken. The pieces which have been taken are entered again by casting the dice-No. 1 enters one- No. 5 the whole which are out, but the intermediate numbers do not enter any." Low 1839: 379.
Confidence 100
Source Low, J. 1839. 'On Siamese Literature.' Asiatic Researches 20(2): 338-392.
|
