What is shagai?

Shagai are the ankle bones of sheep or goats. In Mongolia they are kept, polished and passed down in families, and they are used for games, for fortune telling and for one of the country's traditional sports. This page explains how shagai work and the games people play with them, including the horse race that inspired our game Shagai Race.

The bone and its four sides

A shagai is the astragalus, a small bone from the ankle of a sheep or a goat. It has an irregular, roughly cube-like shape, so when you toss it, it comes to rest on one of four sides. Each side has a name and an animal:

Horse (mori): one of the two rounded, convex sides.
Camel (temee): the other convex side.
Sheep (khoni): one of the two hollow, concave sides.
Goat (yamaa): the other concave side.

On soft or uneven ground a bone can also balance on its end. Some people call that rare position the cow. Because the sides are not equal in size, the four results do not come up equally often, which is part of what makes shagai games interesting: luck plays a role, but it is not the even luck of a six-sided die. Shagai are often described as one of the oldest forms of dice.

The horse race

The best-known shagai game is the horse race. Players line up a row of bones on the floor or a table as the race track, and each player has one bone that is their horse. In one common version, players take turns tossing four shagai, and every horse side that comes up moves their horse one bone along the track. In another, players flick their horse bone along the line of bones. Either way, the first horse to reach the end wins.

The game is simple enough for small children and exciting enough for grandparents, which is why it is a favorite at Tsagaan Sar, the Mongolian Lunar New Year, when the whole family gathers in one home. Many families have their own house rules, for example extra steps when all bones show the same animal.

Other shagai games

Families play dozens of games with the same bones. A few common ones:

Flicking: the bones are scattered, and players flick one bone so that it hits another, collecting bones while they keep hitting.
Catching: players toss a group of bones and try to catch as many as they can on the back of the hand, then in the palm.
Birthing camels: players use bones showing the sheep side to knock camel bones over into the sheep position.
Counting tosses: players toss two, three or four bones and score points for horses or for special combinations, such as four different sides in one toss.

Fortune telling

Shagai are also used to read luck. Four bones are tossed together. The convex sides, horse and camel, are considered lucky, with the horse the luckiest of all. The concave sides, sheep and goat, are less lucky. Four different sides in a single toss is seen as a very good sign. In Shagai Race, that same toss is called a blessing and moves your horse four extra steps.

Knuckle-bone shooting, a world heritage sport

Shagai are also at the center of a team sport. In knuckle-bone shooting (shagai kharvaa), players flick small polished tablets along a smooth wooden board to knock shagai off a target, while their team sings traditional songs of encouragement. In 2014 UNESCO inscribed Mongolian knuckle-bone shooting on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Play the horse race online

Shagai Race turns the family horse race into a free browser game. You toss four shagai, horses and camels move you forward, and you decide whether to ride now or toss again for more. You can play alone against computer riders, pass one phone around the family, or race friends online, each on their own phone, with a 4-letter room code. Read the full rules in our Shagai Race guide, or learn about the real race behind it in Naadam horse racing explained.