or to surround him in the open field and take him captive. The prototype of the former is the beleaguered fortress, and of the latter combats with dangerous beasts of prey. The Malay Rîman-Riman, or Tiger-play, is a good example of the latter. The arena is somewhat of this form and appearance, the figure being simply traced on the sand, or stamped with red and white on boards or cloth. The single player has twenty-four stones, the men, ôrang-ôrang. The other players have a single large one or sometimes two, the tiger, rîman. The tiger is governed by fixed rules, and the men seek to pen him up so that he can not move.[388]
In the second kind the parties, being numerically equal, stand opposed as in checkers, where a hot struggle goes on to get three men in a row—at least this is one of the simplest forms of the game as described by Ovid. Among German antiquities there is a representation of two men with a board set with stones. Schuster at least considers this a game similar to checkers.[389] And besides, there are groups engaged in the Damen-Spiele, which was probably known to the ancient Egyptians as well as the Greeks and Romans, although we can not be certain as to the rules of these ancient games, πόλις, ludus latrunculorum. In mediæval times elaborately ornamented boards were used for this game. “Especially noteworthy,” says Weinhold, “is one that is used as a reliquary on the altar at Asschaffenburg. It is set with jasper and beryl crystals, beneath which various figures are inlaid in the Roman manner on a gold ground.”[390] Büttikofer brought with him from Liberia a very interesting ethnological specimen, almost unique in character. The game played in that region does not require a board or other
flat surface, but wooden cases into which rods are inserted like arrows in a quiver. This represents the placing of the men on a board. Each player has ten rods, of which only four are placed at the beginning of the game. The dots in the cut show their position. The object is to get into the enemy’s country by judicious jumping, the reserve ammunition being placed as occasion requires until the supply is exhausted.[391] Another form of this kind of game is the Oriental Mangale, which is now becoming quite general.[392] In Damascus, where, according to Petermann, it is constantly played in all the coffee houses, a board two feet by six inches is used. It is over an inch thick and has in its upper side two parallel rows of holes, seven in number in Damascus; other places have six, eight, or nine. In these holes tiny pebbles, gathered in a particular valley by pilgrims to Mecca, are laid; usually seven in each. The player removes the stones from the first depression on his right, and throws them one by one toward the left and into the holes on his opponent’s side. This play is kept up under certain rules and conditions, of course, and with the aid of much counting[393] of winnings, and whoever gets the most stones has the game.[394] In concluding we must not fail to notice the noblest of all board games, chess, which, on account of the great variety of men employed and their complicated moves, is the most difficult of games, as well as the most entertaining. Many are of the opinion that some ancient games are of the same character, but it is probable that real chess is of Indian origin, whence it spread to the Persians and Arabians, and through them into northern Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain. In the last-named country we hear of it as early as the ninth century, and it appeared in Italy and Germany certainly not later than the eleventh, soon becoming the favourite game of the educated classes. This is proved by the fact that in a book of sermons published in the latter half of the thirteenth century one Jacobus de Cessoles, a Dominican, attempts to set forth a system of rules for right living founded on the rules of the ludus scaccorum.[395] The game has naturally undergone many changes in the course of time; for instance, the Arabians originally had elephants in the place of our bishops; but it has always preserved the character of a battle, and is so represented in old Arabian manuscripts.[396]
Our third group of board plays is comprised of those which add the attraction of chance to intellectual enjoyment of the contest. It is true that to a certain degree chance is an element in the purest games of reason, since the most skilful player can not foresee all the consequences of a move, and various uncontrollable influences[397] may interfere with the best-laid plans; but in the games which we are now considering there is a blending of risk with calculation, which has a peculiar charm. Perhaps the most familiar game of this kind is backgammon, which was certainly known to the Greeks and Romans, and possibly to the Egyptians and Phœnicians. In this game and kindred ones the object is to throw away men whose value is determined chiefly by chance, while the advance to advantageous points is a matter of calculation, thus affording a combination of direct and indirect fighting. Backgammon is of peculiar ethnologic interest because of the prominent part it plays in the controversy as to whether Asiatic influence is traceable in primitive American civilization. E. B. Tylor has stated in several passages[398] that a kind of backgammon played on a cruciform board is a favourite amusement of the East Indians, and is called by them Patschisi (in Burmah: Patschit), and a very similar form of the game was known to the pre-Columbian Mexicans under the name of Patolli. Tylor considers the complicated nature of the game as a sufficient disproof of its independent origin, and from this, and a certain kinship to chess which is apparent in it, he concludes that the whole group of games furnishes an important argument in favour of Asiatic influence on American life before the time of Columbus.
Dominoes may serve as the connecting link between such games as we have been considering and card games, since the lack of a prescribed field, the concealed store of each player, and the chance distribution at the beginning, as well as the acquisition of new ammunition during the game are common features. Playing cards are supposed to be a comparatively recent invention of the Chinese, which, like chess, was carried into Spain by the Saracens, and thence spread all over Europe in the fourteenth century. Many are of the opinion that they are a modification of chess, and in fact the oldest game known to be played with them is one of the most complicated that we have—namely, Taroc, which requires seventy-eight cards. It was played in Bologna in the beginning of the fifteenth century.
Since the victory in card games is not won by virtue of the position of the cards, but by their succession and value, the faculty of memory is largely concerned, as victor and vanquished at once disappear and the men yet unengaged are concealed. This and the inequality of the players’ forces at the beginning constitute the distinguishing feature of cards. Lazarus’s penetrating glance has descried the point which differentiates the various games, placing them in the varying relation of accident and calculation. “Not all games,” he says, “are alike in this. There are some in which chance is predominant—as poker, for example, or the new game of bluff, so popular in America, where so much depends on the dealing, and the play is not so much a calculation as an attempt to exhaust one’s opponent.... The stronger games, however, such as whist, Boston, l’hombre, solitaire, piquet, Skat, euchre, etc., depend on the sustained influence of both chance and calculation. After the cards are once distributed calculation begins, but chance continues to be powerful,[399] for at every play a new card enters into the combination and must be given its due weight, whether from the hand of friend or enemy. This is more obvious in the cases where the original force is recruited by drawing from the pack; yet even here attentive following of the progress of the game will furnish data for determining the probable situation of a third card, and thus, after all, skill has as much to do with it as chance. And in such a game as whist en deux in which all the cards are dealt, and each player knows exactly the strength of his opponent, the whole thing depends on calculation, and consequently is not so attractive. It would be a game of chess with cards but for its inferiority in variety and combination.”[400] Lazarus goes on to say why chance is indispensable in card games—namely, because, as there is no such thing as space combination, the monotony would be wearisome, and continued playing well-nigh impossible. Without Fortune’s reverses, too, the games would necessarily be begun with equal forces, and it is easy to see how little enthusiasm such games would excite. Only in connection with chance, then, can Reason find in cards a task worthy of her powers, and, indeed, a small prize is a stimulus sometimes needed to keep up our interest. This may be a suitable place to mention that it was formerly the custom to play for money or some stake with all games of chance and even with chess.
I close this review of contests which are purely intellectual with two brief remarks, the first of which concerns the invention of board games. It is difficult to find a perfectly satisfactory answer to the question of their origin. However, their complication points to adults rather than children as their probable inventors, and to me the following consideration seems important: The primitive races, who find it difficult to convey their thoughts in speech, naturally take to marking on the sand, and hence the figures might arise.[401] If the leader of one of the more intelligent peoples wished to instruct them concerning some past or future combat, it would be a simple method of illustrating his meaning to draw an outline on the ground and represent the position of the hostile forces by small stones or similar objects whose movements would symbolize the manœuvres of the forces or the advances of knights for single combat. This would, no doubt, be exceedingly interesting to those conducting it, and also to the spectators, and might easily be repeated for the sake of the amusement afforded until some inventive genius turned it into a veritable play with board and men. To show that there is nothing improbable in this supposition we may point to the fact that such play is actually carried on by our own officers (Italian, manovra sulla carta).
The second remark relates to the pleasurable quality of games involving use of the reasoning faculty. We have already shown that play with reason takes the form of experimentation with imagination and the other intellectual faculties in their capacity of illusion workers as well as in their more constructive activity; now we find further that its recreative effect is much greater than is realized during the progress of the game, and that the consciousness of standing voluntarily in a world of our own creation may be a feature in the interest excited by the game.[402] The chief source of satisfaction, however, is enjoyment of the fight, in the playful intellectual duel, where bold attack and skilful parry, systematic advance and stubborn resistance, crafty manœuvring and direct assault, single combat and the general skirmish, as well as pursuit and demolition, succeed one another in ever-renewed combinations. In those games which add the charm of uncertainty to the mental contest the effect is of course still more complicated. As I shall have occasion later to speak exhaustively of games of chance, I confine myself here to Lazarus’s significant conclusion from the union of these contrasted forces. “That men, and, indeed, the same man can take pleasure in such opposite and absolutely contradictory principles of play seems wonderful, and yet it is most natural, for both are elements of human nature grounded in the very essence of his being and the normal manner of using his powers. In his serious, moral life, directed by the mandates of duty, he is also controlled by two contrary forces, freedom and necessity. He must bow to Fate and yet strive and struggle for what is his own. He expends his energies according to his own behests, and must then await success and reward till the turn of Fortune’s wheel. Both disappointment and struggle, receiving and expending, suffering and toiling, are woven into the texture of his life and character, and become the sources of his volition as well as the arbiters of his fortune. He obeys both forces; to pursue and hold to what is good is his dual impulse, both in life and in play.”[403]