Shagai

Shagai (, ), chükö (, ), asyk/ashyk/oshuq (, ; ; , ，Manchu: ) refers to the astragalus of the ankle of a sheep or goat. The bones are collected and used for traditional games and fortune-telling throughout Central Asia, and games involving the ankle bones may also be referred to by the name of the bones. They may be painted bright colours. Such bones have been used throughout history, and are thought to be the first forms of dice. In English language sources, shagai may be referred to as "ankle bones", and playing with shagai is sometimes called ankle bone shooting.
Shagai games are especially popular during the Mongolian summer holiday of Naadam. In shagai dice, the rolled shagai generally land on one of four sides: horse, camel, sheep or goat. A fifth side, cow, is possible on uneven ground.
Mongolians still exchange shagai today as tokens of friendship. The shagai may be kept in a little pouch.
In addition, Mongolians (usually male) also collect wolf shagai (in this case the calcaneus rather than the astragalus), which are viewed as good-luck tokens, presumably due to the bone's superficial resemblance to the male genitalia.
Divination.
In fortunetelling, four shagai are rolled on the ground; the two convex sides, horse and sheep, are considered lucky, with horse being the luckiest. The sides with concave indents, goat and camel, are deemed unlucky; rolling all four sides on one throw is considered indicative of very good fortune.
Games.
A large variety of traditional Mongolian games are played using the shagai pieces. Depending on the game, the anklebones may be tossed like dice, flicked like marbles, shot at with arrows, caught in the hands, or simply collected according to the roll of a die. In many games, the side on which a tossed piece lands (horse, sheep, camel, or goat) is significant.
For one of the most popular games, there are even public tournaments held, most commonly played during the traditional Naadam festival. In this game, pieces are flicked with the middle finger of one hand, along a wooden board ("khashlaga" = fence rail) held in the other hand. The goal is to hit a target piece over a distance of about 10 m.
An ankle bone shooting game was played under the name of at the 2014 World Nomad Games.
Some other common games are:
Other uses.
Another use of shagai, besides in games and for divination, is as part of musical instruments, such as the Kazakh jetigen, a relative of the Mongolian yatga.