Tuknanavuhpi

Opening Position

Alternate Names

Tûkvnanawöpi is either a slightly different version this game or a different spelling of the same game. The Keres in New Mexico call this game Aiyawatstani, or "chuck away grains". A nearly identical traditional African game is called Kharbaga and it is also known in English as African Checkers.

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

A Tuknanavuhpi board and twenty each of black and white counters are required to play. Some traditional Tuknanavuhpi boards were carved in stone. Typically the central position which is the only one that begins vacant is represented with a star. Note that a Tuknanavuhpi board is equivalent to an Alquerque board with extra diagonals. The counters were traditionally called pokmoita, meaning animals, and were made of corn, pieces of corncob or charcoal. The related game of Kharbaga allows counters to be promoted and this will require a method to denote this. The counters may be stackable, adding one to represent promotion, or have one side that is specially marked that can be turned up when the counter is promoted.

History

The first written description known of this game is Stewart Culin's Games of the North American Indians from 1902-1903. He describes Tuknanavuhpi from the Hopi Indians of Oraibi, Arizona. It is likely that the game is derived from Alquerque which was introduced to the North American Indian by Spaniards. This particular game is not known from Spain or those of Spanish stock so it can be extrapolated that the Indians created the derivation themselves. The game of Aiyawatstani of the Keres Indians is identical in all but name and is also mentioned in this book. The Keres legend given to Culin concerning the game is "that they learned the game in the olden time when they first came out of the sipapu away in the north. Iyatiko, the mother, made all the games."

The high degree of similarity with a traditional game of Tunisia called Kharbaga is probably coincidental, but it cannot be ruled out there may be a connection.

Objective

The goal is to capture all of the opponent’s counters, the first player to achieve this being the winner. A player may also win by blocking any legal move by his opponent. If it is agreed that a draw seems imminent, the player with more counters may declare victory.

Play

Counters are placed at all the intersections except the middle one, as above. Alternate turns between players entail a move along a line to any neighboring vacant intersection in any direction or a short jump over an opponent’s counter in a straight line to a vacant intersection beside the counter being jumped. Counters are captured by being jumped over and are then removed from the board. Double or multiple captures in one move are permitted and direction may be changed after each enemy counter has been jumped. It is not known if original official rules made captures compulsory in this game. However, as the game is likely a descendant of Alquerque it probably makes for a more interesting game to make captures compulsory and I here adopt these rules. Therefore, it is stated that on any turn that it is possible to take an opponent’s counter, it is compulsory to do so. If a player does not make the compulsory capture on their turn by failing to notice it, their opponent may then remove that counter as a bonus before their next move.

A unique aspect of this game is that it was played on an increasingly shrinking board as the game progresses. The exact method Culin has given for this is vague and states, "As soon as a tier of squares is vacant it is abandoned, so that finally the pieces are crowded into three or two squares, and even into one square." I will here make a clarification of this rule, but I do not know if my clarification clearly reflects the original rules of the game. Having stated that; a player may at the start of their turn, before making any move of their counters, block (wipe away or erase depending on the type of board used) one of the remaining of the original sixteen squares of the board, including all four corner points and its central point. This square must be completely vacant of any counters and have at least one of its outside edges at the edge of the game board. This wiping away is optional and not compulsory. These five points will then no longer be available for movement to or from by counters of either player.

Variations

The very similar game of Kharbaga from Africa is played on the same board (although the central star is not present) with the same opening position and is also a jump and capture game. Here, it is more definite that jump and capture moves are compulsory. The difference is that counters, when not jumping, can only move orthogonally or diagonally forward. Captures, however, may be in any direction and multiple jump captures are permitted but it is compulsory to make the longest series of jump and capture moves possible on any turn. A counter that has reached the farthest row from the opposite end of the board from which it started becomes promoted to a Mullah, which may capture and move in any direction. Mullahs capture by short jump or long jump. This means that they may jump over any enemy counter that lies any distance from it along a single unobstructed line. (They may only jump over and capture one counter per jump). They also may land any distance from the counter on the other side, so long as there are no other counters of either color being jumped. A counter may not be promoted to Mullah by only touching this furthest row as part of a jump and capture move, it must land there at the end of a move from the previous row.

Sources

1. Culin, Stewart. Games of the North American Indians. New York : Dover, 1975. ISBN 9780486231259