Jamby atmay
Shooting through the cord of a hanging silver ingot from a galloping horse.
About
In Kyrgyz jamby means an ingot of silver, or another piece of jewellery, hung on a thread from an inclined pole. In jamby atmai the rider shoots at a gallop: the one who cuts the thread and brings the ingot down wins.
History
Jamby atysh is counted among the oldest national games of the Kyrgyz. As A. Alymbaev writes, the contest was known not only to the Kyrgyz but to all the nomadic peoples, and it trained the skill of shooting accurately from a galloping horse. In the Manas epic, at Kökötöy's memorial feast a wire is stretched between two iron posts and the jamby are hung from it; the riders shoot them down at the gallop, and Manas himself brings down the last one. By the epic, only wealthy men could stage such a contest.
In the description quoted by V. Anarbekova, a crosspiece is fixed to the top of a pine pole about ten metres high, the pouches hang from it on five or six hairs of a horse's tail, and it is these hairs that the shooter has to cut. In earlier times they shot with the bow, later with the gun. At some memorial feasts and weddings the game was made harder: arrows were laid on the ground and the rider had to pick them up at the gallop — as many arrows as he lifted, so many shots he earned.
Rules in brief
The Kazakhs call this contest jamby atu. As Kazakhstan's Centre for National and Equestrian Sports writes, the jamby is tied to the end of a long pole and hung high, and the archer shoots at it from a galloping horse. As a sport it is now contested in three styles: Kazakh, Turkish and Korean.
In the Kazakh style three jambys hang 2.5 metres above the ground: a bronze one, a silver one and a gold one. A hit on the bronze jamby brings 5 points, on the silver 10 and on the gold 15, so an archer who hits all three in a round scores 30. The contest has two rounds.
Peoples
Research: Vasif Namazov, Turan Games Concept