Play African Mancala Game Online at Abibitumi Kasa!

[Ɔkyeame Kwame]

Click here to play now!

http://www.abibitumikasa.com/forums/...play&gameid=13

Mancala, Oware and Bao

History Mancala may well be the oldest board game in the world since, like Morris variations, it can be easily played with whatever medium happens to be around. For instance, in Africa, people often play with pebbles using hollows scooped into the earth, with cowrie or other seashells in rings in the sand or specially carved wooden board with seeds. It is a wholly mathematical game - its more complex versions have as much scope as Chess. Mancala board shown is from the author's collection. Stone Mancala boards have been found carved into the roofs of temples in Memphis, Thebes and Luxor - the game was definitely being played in Egypt before 1400BC. It appears that the game might have evolved in Egypt from boards and counters which were used for accounting and stock taking; evidence for such record keeping boards having been found in even more Ancient Sumeria as well as Ancient Egypt. The Game Today Mancala variations are played all over Africa, the two rank Mancala board generally being found north of the equator, the four rank boards, South of the Equator. They also are to be found throughout the Caribbean and on the East Coast of South America having emigrated with by slaves during the colonial expansion era. There are also versions in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia ("congkak", pronounced Chon-ka) and the Philippines. Bao, played in East Africa. This board was bought in Kenya by the author. The Orang-utan's opponent could play the single seed into the end pot thus receiving another go and then play the five seeds in pot 3 to take the six seeds from Orang-utan's pot 1. Mancala is played by literally hundreds of tribes throughout Africa, most of whom play their own slightly different variation and have their own special name for it. In fact, to exemplify the difficulty in delving into this subject, here are some variants of the name 'Wari': Wari, Warri, Ware, Walle, Awari, Aware, Awaoley, Awele, Oware, Owari, Wouri To confuse things further, some names of Mancala games are generic referring to all Mancala games in a particular region rather than a particular variant. Generic names include Bao, Soro (Choro or Solo), Mangola, Gabata, Mulabalaba, Ayo and Sadeqa. Of course these can refer to specific variants, too. The two best know Mancala games are Ayo from Nigeria and Wari which is played without much variation across West Africa and much of the Caribbean. There are several main ways that Mancala games differ from one another. Most obviously the number of rows on the board differentiates Mancala games into three sorts - two rank, three rank and four rank Mancala. Oware board, from Ghana. Oware is an internationally popular two-rank Mancala game.. This board, from the author's collection, was used in the first "Mind Games Olympiad" in London, 1997. A second important differentiate is whether the game is single lap, multiple lap or has "Indian-style" laps. In single lap games, a go consists of the seeds from one hole being picked up and placed in subsequent holes. In multiple lap games, if the last seed placed is in a hole already containing one or more seeds, the contents of this hole are then picked up and the seeds distributed in the same way again. A player's turn only comes to an end when the last seed of a 'lap' ends up in an empty hole. Indian style laps are multiple laps but at the end of each lap, the seeds from the hole following the hole in which the last laps' final seed was placed are taken for the next lap. The turn finishes when the hole following the hole in which lap's final seed was placed is empty. An example of Indian-style laps is the Indian game Pallanguzhi, also sometimes spelt Pallanguli. In Uganda, they play Omweso, a four-rank game of some skill. The boards pictured were on show at the 4th Mind Sport Olympiad, Alexandra Palace, London, August, 2000. The rectangular board is typical of a Ugandan board while the other board is more ornate folding up to show a carved elephant and give a carrying handle. The game pieces are Empiki seeds. These come from the Omuyiki tree and are light but very hard. The Sri Lankans play a game called "Olinda Kaliya" which uses Indian Style laps. The characteristic seeds used for the game, bright scarlet with black tips, are from this Olinda bush. A typical Olinda Kaliya board belonging to the author is shown below. To the right is an Olinda bush observed in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. Bottom right is a Sri Lankan table pictured in the reception of the Kandalama Hotel, Sri Lanka. It is made from Mahogany and is designed in the form of an Olinda Kaliya board. The author is now the proud owner of this table - and the larger than life playing seeds that go with it. Where to Buy Masters Traditional Games sells some genuine Oware boards - both normal size and Table Boards. Links Make your own Mancala board from 2 egg boxes The rules for Oware and a quite complex version of Bao can be obtained from Masters Traditional Games. Omweso, the national game of Uganda - a truly marvellous country. Play Mancala on-line from Brian Casey Mancala Games from Hans Bodlaender - lots of links and info. Congklak - traditional game of Indonesia from an ex-pat Some Bao rules from The Games Cabinet African Games and Links from Edward Brisse Mancala Boards of the British Museum by Patty A. Hardy - great pictures! Museum and Archive of Games in Ontario. More info from another excellent museum

jm at tradgames.org.uk

Copyright © 1997 - now by James Masters.

Mancala

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Mancala is a family of board games played around the world, sometimes called sowing games or count and capture games, which comes from the general gameplay. Mancala games play a role in many African and some Asian societies comparable to that of chess in the West. The List of mancala games best known in the Western world includes Kalah and Oware. Other games are Congkak, Omweso, Ayo, Ünee tugaluulakh, Bao, and Chunca.
The word mancala comes from the Arabic word naqala meaning literally "to move". There is no traditional game with the name mancala, rather mancala is a type of game. This word is used at least in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, but is not consistently applied to any one game.
In the USA, Mancala is often used as a synonym for the game Kalah.

Contents [hide] 1 General gameplay 1.1 Equipment 1.2 Object 1.3 Capturing 2 History 3 Analysis 4 See also 5 Bibliography 6 References 7 External links

[edit] General gameplay

Mancala games share a general gameplay sequence of picking up all seeds from a hole, then sowing seeds one at a time from a hole, and capturing based on the state of board. This leads to the English phrase "Count and Capture" sometimes used to describe the gameplay. Although the details differ greatly, this general sequence applies to all games.

[edit] Equipment

Wooden Mancala Board from West Africa


Equipment is typically a board, constructed of various materials, with a series of holes arranged in rows, usually two or four. Some games are more often played with holes dug in the earth, or carved in stone. The holes may be referred to as "depressions", "pits", or "houses". Sometimes, large holes on the ends of the board, called stores, are used for holding the pieces. Playing pieces are seeds, beans, stones, cowry shells, "Gypsie jewels" or other small undifferentiated counters that are placed in and transferred about the holes during play. Nickernuts are one common example of pieces used. Board configurations vary among different games but also within variations of a given game; for example Endodoi is played on boards from 2 × 6 to 2 × 10.
With a two-rank board, players usually are considered to control their respective sides of the board, although moves often are made into the opponent's side. With a four-rank board, players control an inner row and an outer row, and a player's seeds will remain in these closest two rows unless the opponent captures them.

[edit] Object

The object of mancala games is usually to capture more stones than the opponent; sometimes, one seeks to leave the opponent with no legal move or to have your side empty first in order to win.
After sowing from the first hole.
At the beginning of a player's turn, they select a hole with seeds that will be sown around the board. This selection is often limited to holes on the current player's side of the board, as well as holes with a certain minimum number of seeds.
In a process known as sowing, all the seeds from a hole are dropped one-by-one into subsequent holes in a motion wrapping around the board. Sowing is an apt name for this activity, since not only are many games traditionally played with seeds, but placing seeds one at a time in different holes reflects the physical act of sowing. If the sowing action stops after dropping the last seed, the game is considered a single lap game.
Multiple laps or relay sowing is a frequent feature of mancala games, although not universal. When relay sowing, if the last seed during sowing lands in an occupied hole, all the contents of that hole, including the last sown seed, are immediately resown from the hole. The process usually will continue until sowing ends in an empty hole.
Many games from the Indian subcontinent use pussa-kanawa laps. These are like standard multilaps, but instead of continuing the movement with the contents of the last hole filled, a player continues with the next hole. A pussa-kanawa lap move will then end when a lap ends just prior to an empty hole.

[edit] Capturing

Depending on the last hole sown in a lap, a player may capture stones from the board. The exact requirements for capture, as well as what is done with captured stones, vary considerably among games. Typically, a capture requires sowing to end in a hole with a certain number of stones, or ending across the board from stones in specific configurations.
Another common way of capturing is to capture the contents of the holes that reach a certain number of seeds at any moment.
Also, several games include the notion of capturing holes, and thus all seeds sown on a captured hole belong at the end of the game to the player who captured it.

[edit] History


Ancient Gebeta (i.e. Mancala) holes in the base of an Aksumite stele, Axum, Ethiopia.


The first evidence of the game are fragments of a pottery board and several rock cuts found in Aksumite Ethiopia in Matara (now in Eritrea) and Yeha (in Ethiopia), which are dated by archaeologists to between the 6th and 7th century AD; the game may have been mentioned by Giyorgis of Segla in his 14th century Ge'ez text "Mysteries of Heaven and Earth," where he refers to a game called qarqis, a term used in Ge'ez to refer to both Gebet'a (Mancala) and Sant'araz (modern sent'erazh, Ethiopian Chess).^[1] The similarity of some aspects of the game to agricultural activity and the absence of a need for specialized equipment present the intriguing possibility that it could date to the beginnings of civilization itself; however, there is little verifiable evidence that the game is older than about 1300 years. Some purported evidence comes from the Kurna temple graffiti in Egypt, as reported by Parker in 1909 and Murray in his "Board games other than chess". However, accurate dating of this graffiti seems to be unavailable, and what designs have been found by modern scholars generally resemble games common to the Roman world, rather than anything like Mancala.
Although the games existed in pockets in Europe -- it is recorded as being played as early as the 17th century by merchants in England^{[citation needed]} -- it has never gained much popularity in most regions, except in the Baltic area, where once it was a very popular game ("Das Bohnenspiel") and Bosnia^{[citation needed]}, where it is called Ban-Ban and still played today. Mancala has also been found in Serbia^{[citation needed]}, Bulgaria^{[citation needed]}, Greece ("Mandoli", Cyclades) and in a remote castle in southern Germany (Schloss Weikersheim).
The USA has a larger mancala playing population. A traditional mancala game called Warra was still played in Louisiana in the early 20th century. In Cape Verde, Mancala is known as "orrim"^{[citation needed]}. It is played in the Islands and was brought to America by Cape Verdean immigrants. It is played to this day in Cape Verdean communities in New England.

[edit] Analysis

Sowing games can be analyzed using combinatorial game theory: see Jeff Erickson's article "Sowing Games".

[edit] See also

• List of mancala games

[edit] Bibliography

• Jeff Erickson, Sowing Games, in Games of No Chance, Cambridge University Press, 1998 [1].
• Larry Russ, The Complete Mancala Games Book, Marlowe and company, NY, 2000.
• Philip Townshend, African Mankala in Anthropological Perspective, Current Anthropology, Vol. 20, No. 4. (December 1979), pp. 794-796.
• Charles Goren, Goren's Hoyle Encyclopedia of Games, Chancellor Hall, Ltd. NY, 1961.

[edit] References

1. ^ Richard Pankhurst, "Gäbäṭa," in Siegbert von Uhlig, ed., Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha (Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005), pp.598.