Board games from the city of Vijayanagara (Hampi ... - Gioco dell'Oca.

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B OARD G AME S TUDIES 6, 2003
ily of ball games. It is not an extinct game, however; recently it has seen a renaissance in
Istria, being played as a tournament game by Slovenian and Croatian players. (36)
I have recently learned of a highly unusual type of stick game, in which the stick at
the same time functioned as a die. In his book So i hul from 1990 the Danish game historian
Jørn Møller describes a game of this type, a Faroese 18th-century game called
exebiti. (37) I have now discovered that the same tradition was known also along the
Norwegian coast from Oslo to a little north of Bergen, in Belgium, and in Scotland.
Apparently no parallel occurrences have been found at all. (38)
The dice stick used in these games is a 10-12 cm long and a 1 1/2 to 3 cm wide rectangular
piece of wood with pyramidal ends and Roman numerals cut into its four
sides. In Bergen shorter and thicker sticks are sometimes preferred. The rules differ
quite a bit. Only a few common features will be mentioned here. In most cases the
stick is placed upon an oblique board, and a circle on the ground is made around it. Two
players or teams participate: one is in, one is out. The in-team hits the dice stick in
turn with a bat or rod on the point of it, thus making it whirl through the air. In some
of the Norwegian variants it is first thrown in the direction of the circle. When the
stick is hit, the out-team tries to catch it or throw it back into the circle. If they succeed,
then the roles are reversed.
The nixepinne used in Oslo (39) and Kristianssand, (40) the katt used in Lista, (41) and
the kattepinne used in Bergen and Dale (42) all have the same signs on their sides: an X or
a cross and the Roman numerals II, IIII and VI. The cat used in the game strac agus cat,
played in Argyleshire, in South-Western Scotland, had the Roman numerals I, II, III, IV
on its sides. (43) The Faroese exebiti, described by Johan Christian Svabo in his
Indberetninger, that is reports from a journey in 1781 and 1782, has other signs: the
Roman numerals I, II, X and XII. (44)
The South-West Norwegian abeseditt
from Valestrand has the (Roman?)
numbers 100, 50, 20 and 10. (45) Similar
values are known from West Flanders. (46)
The wiep used in the game wiep-slaan has
the (Roman?) numbers 100, 50, 25 and
the word wiep, or as an abbreviation, the
letter W. The similar stick used in
Fig. 12. Sticks for the Flemish game duzendslaan!
A indicates the 10 cm long dice stick
which is to be hit, B the 1,25 m long stick,
put into the ground, C. (Drawing in de
Cock and Tierlinck 1903).
duzend-slaan (Fig. 12) had the following
signs: 10 crosses, meaning 100, 5 crosses,
meaning 50, the Roman numeral 25 and
niets, that is “nothing” (sometimes
marked with a cross or V).
The numbers 2, 4, 6, on the
Norwegian nixepinne, katt and kattepinne decide the number of strokes that one of the
two teams is entitled to make. When the dice stick lands outside the circle, then, when
nixepinne is being played, the in-team is allowed to strike and, when katt and kattepinne
are being played, the out-team may strike. Should the kattepinne rest on the circle, only