This game is played during the time of year when the first snow falls. One person sends a messenger to another person's home, and if the recipient of the message fails to catch the messenger before the messenger can return home, then the recipient must pay for a large meal for the sender of the message; otherwise, the message-sender pays.[4][5][6]
Bujal bazi, known as Bejali in some parts of the country, is a game played by children with
sheepknucklebones.[7]
Gudiparan bazi
Gudiparan bazi in
Dari or kaghazbad in
Pashto are some of the local names for
kite fighting and
kite running in Afghanistan.[8][9] It has been going on in the country for over 100 years.[10]
Khusai
In the game of khusai (pronounced as ghorsai in Persian), two teams attempt to pass each other to the other team's goal line, while preventing the other team from doing the same.[6] The game requires hopping on one foot in order to knock opponents down.[11][12]
Two teams of four to five players compete by throwing stones at a target; each player gets 10 throws, and the player that throws the closest to the target in a given round wins that round. Hitting the target directly earns twice as many points. The team that reaches 10 points first wins.[13]
During certain
public holidays such as
Eid al-Fitr, participants in this game paint hard-boiled eggs and then bump them against other participants' eggs in order to break the other eggs.[14][15][16][17]
Board games
Carrom
The game of
carrom is played in many Afghan homes, including in public parks.[18]
Chaka
Chaka is the local name for
Ludo board game in Afghanistan.
Pahlawani is a form of
wrestling contested over four rounds, in which each round is won by the participant who can flip their opponent onto their back.[22][7]
Buzkashi (
Persian: بزکشی,
lit. 'goat pulling') is the national sport of
Afghanistan and
Tajikistan. It is a traditional sport in which horse-mounted players attempt to place a goat or calf carcass in a goal. Similar games are known as kokpar, kupkari, and ulak tartysh in
Kyrgyzstan and
Kazakhstan.
Tent pegging (sometimes spelled tent-pegging or tentpegging) is a
cavalry sport of ancient origin, and is one of only ten
equestrian disciplines officially recognised by the
International Equestrian Federation. Used narrowly, the term refers to a specific mounted game with ground targets. More broadly, it refers to the entire class of mounted cavalry games involving pointed and edged weapons (lance and sword) on horseback, for which the term "equestrian skill-at-arms" is also used.