Gatta
Also गट्टी, ghutta and gotta. Let's Play Initiative Nepal calls it chaga.
Five small stones on the floor. One is tossed up, and while it is in the air the others are picked up, swept in or set down, through seven levels each harder than the last. Mostly a girls' game, and in the valley a Newar children's one.
- Who plays
- Two or more, taking turns. The Kathmandu Post says two to four.
- What you need
- Five small, round stones.
- Where
- Any floor: a courtyard, a veranda, a room.
- When
- Any time, indoors or out.
What you need
Five small stones, round enough to sit still and small enough that several fit in one hand. The Nepal Academy dictionary defines gatta as small, round pieces of stone that children play with. One of the five is the striker, the stone that is tossed.
How it is played
These are the seven levels as Let's Play Initiative Nepal teaches them in Bhaktapur. Scatter the stones, keep the striker, and play the levels in order.
Level one: one at a time
Toss the striker, pick up one stone from the floor, and catch the striker as it comes down. Do the same for each stone.
Level two: two at a time
The same, picking the stones up two at a time.
Level three: three, then one
Pick up three stones together on one toss, and the last one on the next.
Level four: down and up
Toss the striker and put four stones down. Toss again, and catch the striker with all four in your hand.
Level five: the gate
Make a gate with one hand on the floor, and on each toss sweep one stone through it.
Level six: the cave
Make a cave with one hand, sweep the stones into it one per toss, then catch them all with the striker.
Level seven: the heart
An opponent makes a heart with their two hands on the floor. Move the stones onto it, one per toss. Then the opponent lifts their hands away, and you catch all five with the striker.
Fouls, and winning
Missing the catch is a foul, and so is touching another stone. After a foul the next player goes on from where the last one failed. The first to finish all seven levels wins.
Other ways to play
ECS gives eight levels, the eighth putting all the stones into the cave and picking them up at once, and allows three tries at each stage before the stones pass on. Onlinekhabar says some play with five stones, some with seven and some with nine. The Kathmandu Post has two to four players, and whoever clears the most stages wins.
What is on record
- 2010ECS sets the game out in eight stages, with three tries at each.
- 2019The Kathmandu Post remembers it for two to four players.
- 2025Let's Play Initiative Nepal teaches it in Bhaktapur as chaga, in seven levels.
- Asar 2083Gorkhapatra counts gatta among the games of a childhood that is disappearing.
Where the sources disagree, or say too little
Seven levels or eight?
Let's Play Initiative Nepal teaches seven. ECS has eight, with the cave filled and emptied at once as the last.
How many stones?
Five is what most accounts give. Onlinekhabar says five, seven or nine.
Why chaga?
Let's Play Initiative Nepal calls the game chaga and does not say why. Nepali Wikipedia says gatta is popular among Newar children, so it may be a Newar name. Nobody we read says.
Sources
Every fact on this page comes from one of these. Where a source could not be read, or a claim has none, the text says so.
- Chaga: Gatti Game, PlayGuru, Let's Play Initiative Nepal, 18 March 2025
- Nepali Street Games, Aarti Basnyat, ECS, July 2010
- Old-school games to take you down memory lane, Arjun Bhattarai, The Kathmandu Post, 21 November 2019
- With no inter-generational transformation, Nepal's traditional local games are dying, Sudarshan Aryal and Govinda Raj Nepal, Onlinekhabar, 6 March 2022
- हराउँदै बालापन, Gorkhapatra, 6 Asar 2083 (in Nepali)
- गट्टा, Nepali Wikipedia (in Nepali)
- गट्टा, Nepal Academy dictionary, as copied to Nepali Wiktionary (in Nepali)