The history of Sumatra : $b Containing an account of the government, laws, customs and manners of the native inhabitantsMarsden, William
History
The history of Sumatra : $b Containing an account of the government, laws, customs and manners of the native inhabitants
Marsden, William
Natural history -- Indonesia -- Sumatra; Sumatra (Indonesia)
They have also various games on chequered boards or other delineations,
and persons of superior rank are in general versed in the game of chess,
which they term main gajah, or the game of the elephant, naming the
pieces as follows: king, raja; queen or vizir, mantri; bishop or
elephant, gajah; knight or horse, kuda; castle, rook, or chariot, ter;
and pawn or foot-soldier, bidak. For check they use the word sah; and for
checkmate, mat or mati. Among these names the only one that appears to
require observation as being peculiar is that for the castle or rook,
which they have borrowed from the Tamul language of the peninsula of
India, wherein the word ter (answering to the Sanskrit rat'ha) signifies
a chariot (particularly such as are drawn in the processions of certain
divinities), and not unaptly transferred to this military game to
complete the constituent parts of an army. Gambling, especially with
dice, is rigorously forbidden throughout the pepper districts, because it
is not only the child, but the parent of idleness, and by the events of
play often throws whole villages into confusion. Debts contracted on this
account are declared to be void.
COCK-FIGHTING.
To cock-fighting they are still more passionately addicted, and it is
indulged to them under certain regulations. Where they are perfectly
independent their propensity to it is so great that it resembles rather a
serious occupation than a sport. You seldom meet a man travelling in the
country without a cock under his arm, and sometimes fifty persons in a
company when there is a bimbang in one of the neighbouring villages. A
country-man coming down, on any occasion, to the bazaar or settlement at
the mouth of the river, if he boasts the least degree of spirit must not
be unprovided with this token of it. They often game high at their
meetings; particularly when a superstitious faith in the invincibility of
their bird has been strengthened by past success. A hundred Spanish
dollars is no very uncommon risk, and instances have occurred of a
father's staking his children or wife, and a son his mother or sisters,
on the issue of a battle, when a run of ill luck has stripped them of
property and rendered them desperate. Quarrels, attended with dreadful
consequences, have often arisen on these occasions.
RULES OF COCKING.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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