Ashyk / Shagai (knucklebones)

An old folk game played with the ankle bone of a sheep.

Names among the peoples

asıq atu (Kazakhs)
çükö (Kyrgyz)
aşıq (Azerbaijanis)
aşık oyunu (Turks of Türkiye)
aşık (Turkmens)
aşıq atuv, aşıq tiyirişüv (Karachay-Balkars)
kajık (Tuvans)

About

Ashyk is a traditional game played with the talus (ankle) bone of a sheep. The Kazakhs call it assyk atu; the Kyrgyz call the bone chükö. Each player has his own set of bones; a separate bone dyed in a bright colour, the saka, is used for striking.

A player uses his bone to knock the other bones out of the field. The position in which a bone lands plays the main part in the course of the game. The game is played mostly by children between four and eighteen years of age; the older boys teach it to the younger ones by showing them.

The game develops children's thinking and their bodies, and strengthens friendship. It is widely played at festive celebrations and gatherings. In 2017 UNESCO inscribed "Kazakh traditional Assyk games" on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Among the Nogais the game is called asyklar. According to the Republican House of Folk Art of Dagestan, at the Nogay El festival held in Terekli-Mekteb, in the Nogai district, it is played by the older generation.

History

As B. Zhalieva writes, the nomadic Kyrgyz kept much livestock, and so games played with knucklebones were very common among them; the Khakas have many such games too. The Khakas game khan pylazakh ("capturing the khan") matches the Kyrgyz kan talamai exactly. The author traces it to an old military custom of the nomads — the plundering of the wealth of a defeated enemy or a dead khan.

The chief piece of the game is the "khan": it is made from the knucklebone of a wild goat and painted a bright colour. A bone can fall in four ways — alchy, taa, bügö and chige — and the course of the game depends on it. The bone that is thrown is called the "arrow" (ok) and the bone aimed at the "deer" (kiyik); in the end the player who has gathered the most bones wins.

Rules in brief

Assyk atu has been a sport in Kazakhstan since 2011. In a match 15 bones are set out in the centre of a circle four metres across. A player throws his own bone from five metres and tries to knock them out; depending on age the distance is four, five or six metres. The first player to knock out eight bones wins.

In the Kyrgyz game of ordo the main bone, called the khan, is placed in the middle of the field with the other bones around it; the aim is to knock them out of the field. Both games are on the programme of the World Nomad Games.

Ashyk / Shagai (knucklebones)

Names among the peoples

About

History

Rules in brief

Federations and competitions

Peoples

Sources