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the lines may be read both vertically and horizontally, backwards and forwards; they form a series of rhyming verses. MAGUL PARAKKUWA, 'The Delay of the Feast.'

This is a very good puzzle which is sometimes brought out at marriage festivals, the guests being required to solve it before partaking of the feast. It consists of a thin wooden disk with two holes bored through it near the centre and twelve others round the margin, at equal distances apart. Twelve strings knotted at one end, on the underside of the disk, pass through all the outer holes and meet in a knot at about eight or nine inches above the disk. From their meeting-point another passes through a central hole, back through the other central hole and upwards to the same knot, where it is tied. Running on the two middle strings is a silver finger-ring. The puzzle consists in taking off the ring without untying any knots.

This is effected by drawing a loop of one of the middle strings through each marginal hole in turn, passing it round the knot of the outer string, and drawing it back. By this means all the outer strings are brought within the two inner strings and the ring, which can then be drawn off them.

ARASADI KELIYA.

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This is an excellent game, which requires two confederates. After a diagram of sixty-four squares, like an ordinary chessboard, has been drawn on the ground one of the confederates absents himself. The other requests an onlooker to select any square on the diagram. He then recalls the confederate, who asks him "Which country?" the reply is either Arasadi," or "Kolamba" (Colombo), or "Puttalama," or "Migamuwa" (Negombo), the last three being towns of Ceylon. The confederate then asks "Which street?" and the reply is again one of the same four words. Lastly he asks "Which house?" and again the answer is one of the same words. Almost as soon as it is given, the confederate points out the selected square, and the effect is striking.

The explanation of the solution lies in the fact that although in the actual diagram no letters are written, those shown in

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the illustration are understood to be present at the four corners ; they are, in fact, written there if the players are not well trained. The same letters, which are the Pu initials of the four words of the replies, ko are to be understood as also belonging, in the same order, to the rows of each quarter of the diagram, as in the illustration, but they are never written in actual play. It will be seen that with their assistance any square can be picked out with ease, the vertical rows representing the streets,' and the horizontal rows the houses,' or vice versâ. The difficulty lies in thoroughly remembering that the progression of the letters runs from each corner only to the middle of the adjoining sides, all lines being drawn of equal thickness.

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THE OUTDOOR GAMES

BOLA KELIYA, 'the Ball Game' or 'Marbles.'

There is evidence that this game was played in Ceylon in the second or third century B.C. Several round small balls, some being exactly like the marbles' used by children in England, while others have a segment cut off so as to leave a flat base,1 were found by me in the earliest pottery stratum at Tissa. Three of them were excellently cut or turned stone balls, while the rest were made of hard-burnt earthenware. They must have either belonged to the children of the potters

Similar balls of stone were found among the 'Late Celtic' Lake Dwellings of La Tēne, at Lake Neuchâtel. (Munro. Lake Dwellings of Europe, p. 296.)

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and artizans whose rubbish heap was cut through, or have been new ones which those people made for sale.

Similar articles are still used by children in Ceylon, the sphere being held between the ends of the fore-finger and thumb of the right hand and propelled by placing the end of the fore-finger of the left hand between them, behind the ball, and employing it, with the left wrist, as a spring which propels the ball. The ball is set against the last joint of the forefinger, the back of that hand being towards the player; and not, as in England, between the knuckle of the right thumb and the tip of the fore-finger of that hand.

The game usually played is that in which the players follow up each other's 'marbles,' each in turn endeavouring to strike that of the other player.

WALA SALLI, 'Hole Money.'

This game may be looked upon as the Eastern representative of the modern game of Quoits. It was played in Ceylon by the second or third century B.C. In the Tissa excavations I found many circular thin earthenware disks in the lowest or pottery stratum, and elsewhere, some being evidently well worn at the edges with much use. The majority were a little over one inch in diameter, but some were much larger, as the game requires. I have also seen such disks, often made from pieces of broken jars, among the fragments of rough pottery which mark the sites of former villages in Northern Ceylon. They prove that the game in which they were used was a favourite amusement in ancient times throughout the island; and it has maintained its popularity down to the present day as a well-known gambling game which is now often played with money, as its modern name indicates. The present name of the disks used for playing it—Silla, pl. Sillu, a Tamil word meaning 'an earthenware disk'-suggests that before suitable money was available for this purpose the game may have been called after this word. It is known in Egypt, where it is termed Nil'ab fil bōra, bōra being the name of the hole made for it.

As played in Ceylon, a small cup-shaped hole is formed in

a piece of flat ground free from grass or weeds, and a line about three feet long is drawn a few inches away from it. The players, two or three, or more, in number, take their stand at a mark ten or twelve feet from the line, which is thus between them and the hole, and each in turn holds a disk made from a piece of broken earthenware, or a cent piece, between his thumb and first two fingers and carefully pitches it at the hole.

The player whose aim is best now takes up all the disks that have been thrown at the hole in this manner, and from the same mark tosses all together at the hole. Then, while he is at the same spot, with a larger and heavier disk, a five-cent piece if they are playing with money, he must hit one of the pieces which the other players select among those lying round the hole and beyond the transverse line. If he miss it his turn is finished, but if he succeed in hitting it he again tosses all the disks at the hole, and those which fall in it become his property.

The next player begins in the same manner, using the disks that have not been won by the first one, and the game continues until all are won. Accuracy of aim when tossing the first disk at the hole, and at the one selected to be struck, is quite as important in this game as in Quoits.

TATTU KELIYA, 'the Touching Game,' or SURA KAWADIYAN KELIYA.

In this game a rectangular diagram from 40 to 50 feet long and from 20 to 25 feet wide is described on a piece of level ground, and a line is drawn longitudinally down the middle of it. Three tranverse lines are then drawn, dividing the whole into eight equal squares (Fig. 271).

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respective lines, and the Tachchiyā may touch any one whom he can reach while he stands anywhere on the outer side lines.

The players of the opposite side enter the first right-hand square at one end and endeavour to pass longitudinally through all the squares without being touched by the watchers. They go up the squares on the right side of the longitudinal centre line, out at the far end, and back down the squares on the left of the centre line, finally passing out across the transverse border line of the first left-hand square.

A player who passes successfully through the first four squares is termed Pachcha Kuttiya; and when he has returned through the second row of squares he becomes Uppu. The nomenclature shows that this game was introduced into the island by Tamils.

In another and simpler form of Tattu Keliya, which is often played by both Sinhalese and Tamils, whether boys or men, a long line is drawn on the ground, and the opposing parties stand on opposite sides of it. Those on one side then endeavour to cross it without being touched by their opponents while doing so.

A third game is like one played by boys in England. Some players stand inside a series of posts or marks arranged in a wide circle round them. At these a number of others are stationed, and each one endeavours to get across to the next station without being touched by those inside while doing so. The parties in these games exchange places when all have been caught or touched.

BUHU KELIYA, 'Throwing the Ball.'

I have not seen this game played in the interior. As described by Mr. Ludovisi, who terms it, perhaps the only purely indigenous Sinhalese game,' it appears to be an adaptation of English cricket. According to his account it is chiefly played before and after the Sinhalese New Year.

Captains are chosen who form two equal teams, and the

Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1873, p. 25.

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