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| Suspected History |
| Nobody knows for sure how the game 12x12 draughts came to Sri Lanka. I suspect it during the dutch period. Sri Lanka was under a dutch colony before the British. |
| Netherlands(dutch) call this game "DAM". Sri Lankans also call the game "DAM". But in Netherland it is played on 10x10 but in Sri Lanka it is played on 12x12 on an interted borad. |
| Probably the one who started the game couldn't remember the number of squares and the orientation of the board. One cannot expect more from a soldier at that time. |
| Further ... |
| For anybody so keen on draughts history this info might be helpful(from : Peter Michaelsen [email protected]) My information about 12x12 being played in other countries than Canada and Sri Lanka comes from a book by my Dutch friend Arie van der Stoep: A History of Draughts, Rockanje 1984, page 110-111. He mentions the distribution of International checkers and includes here the game on the 12x12 board: I quote from these pages: "Distribution: Asia: Indonesia (named dam-blas) (blas is derived from Dutch blazen = huff) 100+144 cells);...Malaya (144 squares, game-name: dang, board-name: papan-dang; taking and taking the most is obligatory, the huff (name: blaas) still exists (Het Damspel 1930 p. 16-7), rules described by H.O. Robinson, Cheltenham Examiner, 19, 28 november 1903: the man cannot take backwards, and taking the most value is obliged (H.J.R. Murray: A History of Board Games other than Chess, Oxford 1952, p.81); Singapore (144 squares) (Het Damspel 1965 p. 50, reported by R.C. Bell); South India (name: dam), 12x12 squares (The Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910), Sri Lanka (name: dam), with a variety on 144 squares: the man also move backwards (Het Damspel 1929, p. 144, Het Damspel 1925, p. 109, H.Parker, Ancient Ceylon, London 1909 p. 584)." In Erwin Glonnegger: Das Spiele-Buch, Uehlenfeld 1999, there is a photo on p.153 showing "Tams", a draughts variant in Malaysia and Singapore. Game plan with 12x12 squares, 24 stones for each player. This is my translation of the German text under the photo. It shows two boys playing on a home-made 12x12 board with bottle tops. But one of the two boys has in fact 27 bottle tops, while the other has at least 22 - as he is just going to move a piece his hands may cover some further bottle tops. I think that it is safe to conclude that they did both start with 2x30 pieces, like in Sri Lankan/Canadian checkers/draughts, which means that the photo text may be wrong. |
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