Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/221

 The rules of the Achehnese tiger-game are as follows. The two tigers are placed at A, and the eight sheep at B, C, etc. to I, while the player keeps fifteen more sheep one of which he puts on the board whenever one of those in play is killed.

Each moves in turn along the lines of the figure. The tiger may take a sheep each time in any direction or even 3, 5 or 7 from one side of the figure to the other, as for example from K to L or from M. to N.

The game is played on the second figure here represented with 5 tigers and fifteen sheep. A tiger and a sheep are first placed on the board wherever the player likes. Fresh sheep are added one at a time after each move, so long as the supply lasts.

The game ends either when all the sheep are killed, or the tigers hemmed in so as to be unable to move; hence it is called meurimuëng-rimuëng-dòʾ in contradistinction to the next game. The word dòʾ which belongs originally to the verbiage of mysticism and betokens the state of religious ecstasy arrived at in the howling recitations, has in Achehnese the general meaning of "swooning, falling into a faint". So it is applied to the tiger when hemmed in and unable to move.

The third game is called "meurimuëng-rimuëng peuët plōh" ("tiger-game played with forty") as each player puts forty pieces on the board and the pusat (navel) A remains unoccupied. The players may move and take in every direction and so eventually win, though no one is obliged to take if another move appears more advantageous.

As the two sides are exactly equal in number and in privileges, this sort of game of draughts can only in a figurative sense be said to belong to the tiger-games. It is called in Java dam-daman, from the Dutch dam=draughts.

The figures for all these games are usually drawn on the ground, and small stones or the kernels of fruits serve as pieces. Where neces-

The Malays play all three under the name of main rimau or main rimau kambing ("tiger-game" or "tiger and goat-game".) (Translator).