page_title: Sáhkku
section_title: Pieces
hierarchical_section_title: Sáhkku / Rules / Pieces
caption_attribution_description: English: A sáhkku set donated to a museum in 1906, believed to have belonged to Isak Saba, the first Sámi parliamentarian. Photo taken at Varanger Sámi Museum, 2018.
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: 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.
  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.
caption: The "Isak Saba Set" from Unjárga, 1906
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