Sáhkku is a board game of the Sami people. The game is traditional among the North Sámi, Skolt Sámi, Inari Sámi and Lule Sámi but may also have been played in other parts of Sápmi.
Rules Sáhkku is a running-fight game, which means that players move their pieces along a track with the goal of eliminating the other players' pieces. Many different variants of sáhkku have been played in different parts of Sápmi. The oral transfer of the sáhkku rules between generations was largely broken off during the 1900s (see Sáhkku today). A few of the local variants have survived into our time, other local variants have been reconstructed based on a combination of memories and written sources, and for some places only fragments of the local rules are known from old documents.
Board
A sáhkku board (sáhkkufiellu, bircunfiellu or sáhkkulávdi) can traditionally be designed in a number of different ways. At its simplest, a sáhkku board has three parallel rows of short lines, and the pieces are placed on these lines. The lines are called sárgat (one sárggis) in Sámi.
It is common to draw the short lines as vertically connected to each other, so that the board appears to consist of just one row of very long lines, but the game is still played as if these were three separate rows of short lines. Such boards often also have three horizontal lines intersecting the vertical lines in order to illustrate that the lines are still in practice divided into three parallel rows. Some boards feature only a central horizontal line crossing the connected vertical lines, but the game is still played as if there were three rows of short lines.
A special type of sáhkku board is the so-called Návuotna board which has three rows of squares (ruvttat, lanjat) instead of lines.
The central line/square of the middle row, sometimes referred to as "the Castle", is indicated by a sáhkku-symbol ("X"), sun symbol, or other ornament.
Pieces The game features several gálgut ("women") and olbmát ("men"), and one gonagas ("king"). The men and women are collectively referred to as “soldiers” in most variants. The most common number of soldiers on each side is fifteen, but the number has varied according to the length of the board. The smallest number of soldiers described as being used is eight (Boris Gleb), and the highest is twenty. The latter is described as being "used in the Finnmark fisheries”, without any further geographic specification.Borvo 2001, p. 43
Sáhkku pieces produced in accordance with traditional Sámi boardgame duodji (handicraft) are not disc-shaped like pieces in Checkers and Backgammon, but "standing" pieces more akin to Chess pieces. In the simplest design type, each piece's top ends in a sharpened “pyramid” which for the women has a notch cut into it. It is also possible to "elaborate" on this notch so that the female pieces effectively have two "horns" that stick out to each their side. Another tradition is to cut the tops in the shapes of traditional Sámi hats from the area where the game is produced, for example cone-shaped tops for the men and hooked-shaped tops for the women, symbolizing the traditional North Sámi laddjogahpir hat which disappeared at the end of the 1800s because Christian missionaries and evangelists attacked the design for being a symbol of “the Devil’s horn”.
As for the shape of the king, this varies a lot between game sets. At its simplest, the king piece is a tall, slender "pyramid" with four sides. More often, ornaments are cut into the sides. Many of the king pieces are so elaborately carved that the pyramidal shape is only suggested.Borvo 2001, p. 44
Setup At the beginning of the game, rows of men and women face each other on opposite rows of short lines (one sárggis, multiple sárgát). The Castle is occupied by the king. Dice are thrown to determine who begins the game. The player who first throws a sáhkku (X) may start.
Dice
The dice used for sáhkku are four-faced long dice or "stick dice". They are shaped like slightly elongated cubes whose short ends are sharpened to points so that they can only land on four of their sides. One side of each die bears the mark "X", the sáhkku symbol. The numbers on the other sides of the die have been known to vary. A common combination is X-II-III-0, but many other combinations have been known to exist.Borvo 2000, p. 42 The number of dice used has also varied, three being a rather usual number.Friis 1871: 164-167 The dice are traditionally thrown in a bowl, rather than on the table.
Movement Pieces are moved in accordance with values shown on the dice after a throw. Some rule sets demand that the player utilize die values in a certain order such as f.ex. X-III-II-0, while other rule sets do not mention any such rule. One may choose to move one piece several times during one's turn, or to use the values of the different dice to move several soldiers. In some variants, several pieces are allowed to occupy the same sárggis (short line), while in other rule sets this is unclear or explicitly forbidden.
The soldiers When the game begins, the soldiers are inactive — that is, unable to move. A player can activate a soldier by throwing a sáhkku. When activated, a soldier is moved one sárggis ahead.
Local rules differ regarding whether activation is forced or free - i.e. if soldiers have to be activated in turn, starting with the player's foremost soldier, and continuing towards the back, or if any soldier in the home row may be activated regardless of its place in the row.
After activation, dice are used to determine how many sárgát soldiers can move ahead during their turn. The soldiers move in a set pattern or across the board. The shape of this "track" differs from variant to variant.
The king
Rules for using the sáhkku king differ between local variants. In all variants the king begins neutral, not controlled by either player.
Recruiting the king In nearly all variants, the king is recruited by a player who moves one of their pieces onto the sárggis currently occupied by the king. There are also some known historical variants where the king can be recruited in other ways.
Moving the king
Several different rules for how one may move the king exist. The following overview is not exhaustive. (A) The king moves like the soldiers of the player who currently controls it. (B) The king moves backwards or forwards. (C) The king can move orthogonally right, left, up, and down.
The fate of the king What happens to the king during the course of the game is also subject to variation. In most variants of sáhkku, the loyalty of the king can change during the course of the game. The player not currently playing with the king may, for example, recruit it by moving a soldier onto the sárggis currently occupied by it. The king then becomes part of that player's army, until it is recruited by the opposing player again. In nearly all variants of the game, the king cannot itself be captured, only recruited.Michaelsen 2000, p. 22-25
Capturing soldiers The object of the game is to capture all of the opponent's soldiers, that is, to remove them from the board. An opponent's soldier is captured when a player moves a soldier, or the recruited king, onto a sárggis occupied by the opponent. If the sárggis in question is occupied by several opposing soldiers (in the cases where such "cohabitation" is allowed), all those soldiers are captured. A captured soldier is removed from the board, and not entered again. In Sámi, the act of capturing a soldier is referred to as goddit - "to kill".
In some areas, the rules prohibited the capture of inactive soldiers,Borvo 2001, p. 34 while in other areas the capture of inactive soldiers has been allowed, or the rules were unclearly written. It is unknown what was the most widespread, or original, rule.Borvo 2001: p. 49-52
Third piece types Some variants of the game include other pieces in addition to the king and soldier pieces. In the only surviving variant that has such pieces - Lágesvuotna sáhkku - these are called "queens".
Researchers have earlier called such "third pieces" in sáhkku game sets "king's children",Michaelsen 2000, p. 28 theorizing that the pieces were imported from another Sámi board game, dablo, which has such pieces.Michaelsen 2010, p. 218-221 The queens in Lágesvuona sáhkku, do however have an entirely different function than the dablo king's children.
Variants
Lágesvuotna sáhkku
Lágesvuotna sáhkku is a reconstruction of the type of sáhkku played in the Lágesvuotna area. The reconstruction was made by local elder Edmund Johansen.Berg-Nordlie, Mikkel (2018) "Ná sáhkostalat! Vuonnamárkanat 2018".
Design The game uses a standard sáhkku board, i.e. an elongated board upon which is drawn three rows of fifteen sárgát (short, vertical lines - singular sárggis), on which the pieces may stand. The middle sárggis on the middle row is "the Castle" (Šloahtta), marked by a sun symbol or other symbol. On each side of the Castle, five sárgát away, are two sárgát marked by an X (sáhkku symbol) or other symbol.
Board and setup There are 3×15 sárgát. As the game begins, 15 soldiers are placed on the 15 sárgát that constitute their player's "home row". The soldiers are called "men" and "women" (olbmát and gálgut). Each side's army is led by a queen (dronnet), which the players place on the rightmost X-marked sárggis on the middle row. The king (gonagas), which begins neutral, is placed in the Castle.
Dice There are three dice, inscribed with X-III-II-blank. X signifies "move an activated piece 1 sárggis", "activate a piece", or "rethrow die". The latter means that when a player throws X, they are allowed to rethrow the X-giving die in the hope of getting another value, and may rethrow again until the die lands on another value than X.
It is not optional which die value is used first. One must first use the dice showing X, then use the ones showing III, and following this use the ones showing II. If you have a III that you can't use to perform a legal move, and a II that you could have performed a legal move with, then you can't use the II.
The soldiers' movement Soldiers must be activated in order - rightmost soldier first. Unactivated soldiers can't be moved and can't be captured. It is never allowed to move a piece onto a sárggis occupied by an unactivated soldier.
The soldiers' "track" is that they move to the right on their home row, to the left on the middle row, and to the right on the enemy row.
If a soldier should survive the enemy row, it moves onto the middle row and walks towards the left again. When it reaches the middle row's end for the second time, it must move down instead of up. It goes back into the home row and repeats the movement pattern.
If you lose all your soldiers, you have lost the game.
The king's movement The king moves similarly to what is described under (C). It may move orthogonally up and down, by using exact die values: from the home row it needs II to cross directly over to the enemy row, and X to cross directly over to the middle row, while from the middle row it needs X to cross over to the home row or enemy row. Also, the king may move both forwards and backwards within the "8"-shaped movement pattern of the soldiers.
Recruiting the king When the game begins, the king is neutral. When you move a soldier or queen of yours onto a sárggis occupied by the king, you recruit it. From now on, you may use it as your own piece. The king may never be captured, but can be recruited back by your opponent at any time.
The queen's movement