Traditional Mongolian games very well reflect the day-to-day life of nomads and do not require any special accommodation or equipment. The arrangement, time, symbol, and method of playing Mongolian games have become an integral part of the folk wisdom, knowledge, traditions of Mongols.
Mongolian games include stone games, oral games, ankle games, jigsaw puzzles, rhetoric games, hand-picked games, loops, puzzles, and board games. Researchers say that Mongolian traditional games fall into more than 800 categories in 15 groups. There are just more than 130 types of board games.
Nowadays an ankle bone games are the most popular. To play this game all you need is just a sheep’s ankle bones and that’s all. But just with these ankle bones, you can play several games namely horse racing, ankle bone flicking, and building turtle.
- Horse racing is the easiest game that several people can play together but there is no limit to the number of players as well time.
First, you choose an ankle bone as your horse and place it in line with the ankle bones that are straightly lined up. After that, you will be given 4 pieces of ankle bones to throw to the ground if one of the shapes or all the shapes are landed by the horse side of the ankle bone you will move forward. In this game, you need luck more than a skill.
2. The second most popular game is called ankle bone flicking as it sounds this game is all about flicking the ankle. To play this game you must need to understand or memorize 4 shapes of the sheep ankle bone. In this game, you need skill more than luck because you would be needed to flick small ankle bones accurately to one another.Â
