Choban oyunu

A mounted game: a cloth ball is driven with the shepherd's staff to the other side's goal.

About

Choban oyunu ("the shepherds' game") is a mounted game of the Terekeme of Karabakh; it is called so because the shepherds played it in the mountains. The riders of two teams strike a ball rolled out of soft cloth with their shepherd's staffs and try to drive it to their own side. In its build the game recalls chovgan, but the chovgan stick is replaced by the shepherd's everyday staff — a club with a round knob at the end.

Rafail Aliyev, a resident of the village of Shahsevan in Aghjabadi district, tells how he saw the game at a place called Choplugol: the shepherds rolled up a felt cloak, bound it tight into a ball and struck it with their clubs. The text was recorded by collectors of the Folklore Institute of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences; F. Bayat names the game among the mounted games called "Terekeme" or "shepherds' games".

Rules in brief

Two teams play, with three or five riders in each. The sides of the field are divided; the goal is made of two stones set three metres apart. The side that first drives the ball home with the shepherd's staff wins.

If the staff falls from the hand, it has to be picked up from the saddle, without dismounting. A player who gets off his horse is out of the game.

Peoples

• Azerbaijanis

Research: Vasif Namazov, Turan Games Concept

Sources

1. Qarabağ: folklor da bir tarixdir. II kitab (Bərdə və Ağcabədi rayonlarından toplanmış folklor örnəkləri). Bakı: Elm və təhsil, 2012, s. 171–172 («Tərəkəmə oyunları»)
2. Füzuli Bayat. Şamandan səmazənə: oyun və oyunçu. Bakı: Elm və təhsil, 2017, s. 136
3. İllüstrasiya: süni intellektlə hazırlanıb, Komitə təqdim edib