To some, it might seem frivolous to speak of village games when issues such as freedom and democracy, factions and socio-political configurations of a larger order loom in Iran. However, this paper hopes to demonstrate that these games, by their very frivolity, reveal and help resolve tensions not only in the village, but ones that lie at the very core of society. The village might have been where they were observed, but such events can become a window to basic questions such as how society continues in spite of tension and conflict.

The games were observed over Nawruz, the Persian new year which coincides with the vernal equinox, during fieldwork conducted between 1976 and 1979 on the mystical roots of the modernization of the Isma'ilis of Iran. The data, in the form of films of the games and notes from observations and interviews, was collected in villages north of the town of Birjand, southern Khurasan.