Some notes on Malay card games
R.O. Winstedt, a British colonial administrator in Perak, published these notes in 1906 as a supplement to W.W. Skeat’s earlier treatment of Malay card games in Malay Magic, documenting local rule variations and unrecorded Malay terminology across four distinct games. The article is a compact ethnolinguistic record rather than a theoretical study, drawing on Winstedt’s direct observation of play in Perak, Selangor, and Singapore.
Summary
Winstedt’s primary aim is to correct and extend Skeat’s account with field-observed details. He begins with main chabut, a vingt-et-un variant played to either twenty-one or thirty-one pips, and clarifies several points where Skeat’s description was imprecise or incomplete. Most notably, Winstedt reports that court cards are in fact used in both the twenty-one and thirty-one versions (counted as ten pips each), contrary to Skeat’s claim that they are excluded from the twenty-one game. He also provides a more intelligible explanation of the phrase jumpa di-jalan, diadu kalah, dichabut mati, which Skeat had recorded but not adequately interpreted: it applies to the loser in a tie situation where the player who first reached a given pip total (e.g., twenty-nine) wins by right of precedence, and the second player, reluctant to draw and risk going mati, cannot compete.
The second game, daun tiga lei (or pakau), is a three-card game whose hand rankings vary significantly by region. Winstedt documents three distinct hierarchies for Perak, Selangor, and Singapore, noting that in Singapore three aces are worthless (counting as only three pips) while in Perak they constitute the best possible hand. He also records the ritualised card-revealing process (mengurut daun) and the associated vocabulary (minta kosong, minta isi, minta penoh) used during the suspenseful examination of the middle card.
The remaining two games—main trop and main daun cheki—are treated more briefly. For main trop, Winstedt supplies terms absent from both Skeat and Wilkinson’s Dictionary, including the suit names (batu Malacca for diamonds, payong for spades) and the strategic vocabulary (kiler, kot, mita sus). He also describes a set of covert hand signals used by colluding partners, which he wryly notes are “masonic signs accounted by Malay gamblers proper and clever, but which we should call cheating.” For main daun cheki, he provides a complete list of card names in the local dialect.
Key Findings
- In main chabut, the ace (sat) is flexible—worth one, ten, or eleven pips at the player’s discretion—except that two aces in a thirty-one game must each count as one pip (p. 85).
- Regional hand rankings in daun tiga lei differ sharply: in Perak the best hand is three aces, in Selangor three threes, and in Singapore three court cards (tiga kuda); in Singapore, three aces are the worst possible hand, scoring only three pips (pp. 86–87).
- The suit names in main trop are batu Malacca (or dobin/jubin) for diamonds, payong for spades, klawer for the suit with the flying animal, and bibi for the Queen (p. 88).
- The strategic terms kiler (concede the remaining tricks) and kot (attempt to take all tricks, risking kena kot if a trick is lost) govern endgame decisions in main trop (p. 88).
- Winstedt records a complete set of card names for main daun cheki, including iyu merah besar, sah waji, si lebai, chek laier, peh pichak kapala, and ji gendang, identifying two species of the game: cho’it and chochot (p. 88).
- The phrase jumpa di-jalan, diadu kalah, dichabut mati is reinterpreted as describing the loser in a pip-total tie, who cannot adu (compete) with the player who first reached the same total and is therefore forced to draw and risk mati (p. 86).
Conclusion
Winstedt’s notes, though brief, serve a clear archival function: they preserve a snapshot of Malay card-game vocabulary and regional rule variation at the turn of the twentieth century, correcting specific errors in Skeat’s earlier work and recording terms that had not previously appeared in any published dictionary or ethnographic account. The article’s lasting value lies in its documentation of dialectal and regional divergence—particularly the three distinct ranking systems for daun tiga lei—and in its candid, if lightly amused, observation of the signalling practices among colluding players.
Context
- Winstedt was serving as a British colonial official in Perak at the time of writing; his observations reflect direct participation in or observation of local gaming culture rather than second-hand reporting.
- The article draws on Skeat’s Malay Magic (1900–1901) and Wilkinson’s Dictionary of the Malay Language as its reference points, positioning itself as a corrective supplement within the Straits Branch’s ethnographic tradition.