VIDEO GAME PROJECT
PRESERVE INDIGENOUS SPORTS
In 2007, the UN formally recognised the right of
to maintain, control, protect and develop ”
Indigenous people “
traditional games as part of a broader declaration on human
Inside the ambitious
video game
project - Digitising games like
Multicoloured Turtle and pulling, UNESCO wants to
ear make
traditional game tourism a
Kenya , in Brazil , in Greece , in Inuit lands, everywhere, traditional games of Indigenous peoples are going dark. With each extinction , a bit of culture is lost . rights. In
“Most games have the biases of the colonisers. They almost never take the view of the colonised.”
widespread possibility.
You don’t need to look good to play
мэлхий өрөх ,
Алаг
a traditional Mongolian game
that translates to “
Multicoloured Turtle ,”
but
the elders kneeling around the board on cushy rugs all dress to impress. The
women wear
Rik Eberhardt, program manager of the MIT Game Lab.
dangling earrings, rings on each hand, and deels, colourful loose-fitting tunics tied at the waist with
silken sashes
and ornate buckles.
Mainstream Western
games have
nothing like Multicoloured Turtle, which combines strategic play with ceremonial and
storytelling
components. But for Indigenous
Mongolians ,
the game is both
familiar, and a buttress to their traditional
nomadic culture .
The
turtle is built from 108 shagai, a sacred number in
Buddhism ,
while
the colours represent the
gemstones www.popsci.com/technology/unesco-video-game-
LISMORE
CBD MAGAZINE
and elements that
define the cosmos in Mongolian
project-attempts-cultural-preservation/
AUGUST 2021 ISSUE
riddles
and
legend . PAGE 5
