Trobriand cricket

What it is

Trobriand cricket belongs to the villages of the Trobriand Islands, not to any national board. Teams can be forty or fifty strong, because nothing limits how many people take part. The bats and balls are not the regular kind. The visiting side bats first. The two teams bowl in turn, from opposite ends of the pitch. The umpire comes from whichever side is batting, and the job passes to the other side when the innings change. The home team is expected to win.

Origins and history

A British Methodist missionary named William Gillmore brought the game to the islands in 1903. He hoped it would lessen rivalry and fighting between groups. The islanders kept the idea and altered it heavily. Warfare between groups had been banned, so cricket took over a role that fighting once filled: the obligatory, competitive contests the islanders call kayasa, which had been carried out with spears. The game also absorbed things the islanders met through outsiders, British colonisers first and American soldiers during the Second World War. Writers treat it as an example of syncretism, the blending of a received tradition with local practice.

How a match unfolds

Before play, the bats and ball are handed to a local spiritual leader, who blesses them for luck and works for fine weather. Each team rehearses its chants and dances. A dance follows every out, and it is planned by the opposing side, so it may praise that team's skill or mock the other, and some dances carry sexual jokes. Entrance and exit dances frame the match, and one team once brought a mascot dressed as a tourist in bright clothes, looking through pretend binoculars. Bowling is underarm, which hurts less when the ball strikes a player. Scoring has its own rules: a lost ball, or a hit that clears a tree, can be worth six runs.

Meaning and change

Cricket now carries much of what war once gave the islanders: a contest between groups, with display, taunting and ceremony. Players paint their bodies in bright colours and patterns like a warrior's, and the entry and exit dances move in warlike formation. When play ends, the two sides exchange food and the host village puts on the feast. No trophy changes hands. The sport also shows how a borrowed game can be remade, and it has drawn attention from outside the islands, including a 2007 BBC television series.

How Trobriand cricket is kept

Matches are arranged between villages. Before play starts, the bats and ball go to a local spiritual leader for a blessing, and both teams run through the chants and dances they will perform. The visitors bat first. Bowling is underarm, from alternate ends. The umpire comes from the batting side and is replaced when the sides swap. Every out brings a dance, planned by the other side. Entrance and exit dances open and close the play. When the match is over, the two sides exchange food and the host village lays on the feast.

When and where

The sources do not set a season or a fixed date for Trobriand cricket. Games are arranged between villages, and it is the host village that provides the closing feast and, by custom, takes the win.

Trobriand cricket is played in the Trobriand Islands, where it is the local form of the game. It grew up in the villages rather than in towns or schools, and the matches that carry the tradition are those between village teams.

What Trobriand cricket means

For those who keep it, cricket stands in for the old spear fights. The contests once known as kayasa were required, competitive and often violent, and cricket now carries that same obligation in a form that leaves nobody wounded. The blessing of the equipment, the body paint, the warlike dances and the food shared at the end all mark the match as more than sport. It is also a sign of how the islanders take what outsiders bring and make it their own.

Questions people ask about Trobriand cricket

See also

KambalaAn annual traditional buffalo race across muddy paddy fields in southwestern IndiaChristmas treeA decorated evergreen or artificial tree placed indoors to mark the Christmas season.CandlemasA Christian feast of candle blessings marking the end of the Christmas seasonFriday the 13thA Western folk superstition regarding the unluckiness of a Friday falling on the 13th.

Good reading and sources

• Trobriand cricket on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.