goli panjang - childhood games from our kampong days

kampong life was all adventure and play. when we were not catching spiders or catching longkang fish in the monsoon drain or canal, we would be playing games like goli panjang, hatam bola, modified soccer with mini-posts, five stones and many other ingenious forms of play making use of everyday objects like the discarded bicycle wheel, tin cans or even bus tickets.

i will try and describe one of my favourite childhood's games - the goli panjang. two persons can play this game but the more, the merrier because the winning pool gets bigger. it is usually played on a sandy patch, which was not a problem to find in a kampong.

an arrow, with a head and a tail, is drawn on the sand. each player contributes a specified number of glass marbles to start the game. the number of marbles is decided by the players. if you have four players and each put out five marbles, there will be twenty marbles. these glass marbles are then placed on the arrow, spaced out, starting with one on the arrow head and it goes right to the tail. if it goes beyond the tail, then the surplus marbles are pooled together at the tail.

a straight line is drawn, four or five metres, from the arrow with all the marbles. the players take turn to try and hit one of the marbles on the line with a rolled marble. the ultimate aim is to hit the one at the head of the marble, then you get to win all the marbles. if you hit, say the 3rd marble, then all the marbles from the 3rd one onwards are yours. however, if you hit the bunch at the tail of the arrow it does not count.

as the game goes on, the pool may get bigger and bigger. how is this so? each time you start from the line and miss, the rolled marble goes to the pool. so, if everyone keeps missing, then the marbles accumulated at the end of the arrow will get more and more.

if you are a champion shooter, you can go home with two pockets full of marbles.