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Evidence for Kulaochal
1 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.1650
Type Ethnography
Location Kolhan
Date 1925-01-01 - 1925-12-31
Rules 5x5 intersecting lines, with diagonals drawn in each quadrant. One player plays as four tigers, places on the four corners of the board. The other player plays as twenty goats, which are placed on the remaining points, leaving the central point open. Players alternate turns moving a piece to an empty adjacent point along the lines. The tigers may capture a goat by hopping over it to an empty adjacent spot immediately on the opposite side of the goat along the lines. The tigers win when they capture all of the goats; the goats win by blocking the tigers from being able to move.
Content "Kulaoochal : — This is an intelligent game played by persons;— it resembles the “Shola-guti bag-chal’* of Bengal. As its principle is a bit difficult, boys are seldom found playing the game; it is the elderly people who indulge in it. A
quadrilateral diagram is drawn with chalk on the ground The diagonal is intersected by three equidistant parallel, lines drawn within it perpendicularly and three horizontally. Two lines are then drawn diagonally so as to intersect each other at the centre of the diagram. Finally the middle points of each of the sides of the quadrilateral are joined by four straight lines. A ‘guti’ or small piece of stone or similar other substance is placed at each of the twenty points of junction of the three horizontal lines with the three perpendicular lines and with the four sides of the quadrilateral. Two persons sit face to face on two sides of the diagram. The units or ‘gutis’ as they are called are 24 in number of which 4 are called ‘Kulaos’ or tigers and 20 called ‘meroms’ or goats. One party takes the tigers, the other party the ‘meroms’, and the duty of the latter is to defend the ‘meroms’ against the depredations of the tigers.
The four ‘Kulaos’ are placed at the four corners of the diagram and the ‘meroms’ occupy the other 20 junction points excluding the central point. There are altogether 25 such points ; when all the units are placed in situ, only one junction-point namely, the central point remains vacant. The player who owns the ‘meroms’ has to shift them in Such a way that the other player may not find an opportunity of killing them, which is effected
if the 'Kulao’ gets a position after crossing one of the ‘meroms’. The game continues till
most of the ‘meroms’ are devoured by the kulaos, the credit is given to the player who can -cautiously move his ‘guti’ and an intelligent 'player takes hours before he is defeated." Majumdar 1925: 196-198.
Confidence 100
Ages Elder
Source Majumdar, D. 1925. "Some Outdoor and Sedentary Games of the Hos of Kolhan." Man in India 5: 193-202.
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