Rimau-rimau
[1] This family includes games like bagh-chal, main tapal empat, aadu puli attam, catch the hare, sua ghin gnua, the fox games, buga-shadara, and many more.
Rimau-rimau is the plural of rimau which is an abbreviation of the word harimau, meaning 'tiger' in the Malay language.
The several hunters attempting to surround and immobilize the tigers are called orang-orang, which is the plural of orang, meaning 'man'.
Therefore, orang-orang means 'men' and there are twenty-two or twenty-four of them, depending on which version of the game is played.
A similar game to rimau-rimau, especially Version A, is played by the Iban tribe in Borneo, called main machan.
[3] There are a few differences, however; one of which is that there are 28 anak ('children') in main machan as compared to 24 or 22 orang-orang ('men') in rimau-rimau.
[3] There may be more variations of the game with differences in rules, board design, and number of pieces.
But instead of the central intersection point being left empty, the two tiger pieces are placed on it.
The tigers are allowed to capture an odd number of sheep as in rimau-rimau, and the same board is used.
The Acehnese live in northern Sumatra, but on the island of Simeulue (or Simaloer or Simalur) which is just west of Sumatra, the inhabitants play a similar game and may fill in some of the rule deficiencies found for meurimueng-rimueng, the previous game described above.
Jacobson wrote in Tijdschrift Voor Indische Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde (1919), a collection of articles written in Dutch, and spelled the name of the game as rimoe (which sounds like rimau), and Jacobson states that it is the Malay rimau or the tiger game.
There are 24 pieces called ana (which means child in some Austronesian languages, which the inhabitants of Simuelue speak) played by one player.
The person playing the rimoe pieces may only perform a move or a capture in a turn, but not both.
Jacobson writes that rimoe is a favorite pastime among the inhabitants of Simuelue, and are found on the plank floors of many homes or suraës incised (a sura is a place where religious instruction is given, or serves as a lodge for foreigners, especially in Simeulue).
The two triangle board sections are called alas among the inhabitants of Simeulue, and it means 'beach', but among the Malay it is often referred to as a forest (or mountain).
Another variant which is briefly described in "The Achehnese" (1906) is the game Madranggam (or Mudranggam) which is called "four tigers and sixteen sheep".
[8] However, the design of the board is not described or referenced, nor whether or not the tiger is permitted to capture an odd number of goats.
Main rimau is also the name for a game played in the state of Kelantan in Malaysia, and it was described by A.H. Hill in the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (1952) under the article "Some Kelantan Games and Entertainments".
Although not explicitly described in the article, the remaining lěmbu may be assumed to be entered one piece per turn as in Rimau-rimau and the other variants.
A Czech ethnographer, Dr. Karl Plischke (Czech: Karel Plischke), published an article in 1890 in German "Kurze Mittheilung Ueber Zwei Malayische Spiele" (English: Short Message About Two Malay Games) describing a slight variant of Version B.
