The objective of most two- and three-row mancala games is to capture more stones than the opponent in four-row games, one usually seeks to leave the opponent with no legal move or sometimes to capture all counters in their front row.Īt the beginning of a player's turn, they select a hole with seeds that will be sown around the board. 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. 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. The Nano-Wari board has eight seeds in just two pits Micro-Wari has a total of four seeds in four pits. The most minimalistic variants are Nano-Wari and Micro-Wari, created by the Bulgarian ethnologue Assia Popova. The largest is Tchouba ( Mozambique) with a board of 160 (4×40) holes requiring 320 seeds, and En Gehé ( Tanzania), played on longer rows with up to 50 pits (a total of 2×50=100) and using 400 seeds. Playing pieces are seeds, beans, stones, cowry shells, half-marbles or other small undifferentiated counters that are placed in and transferred about the holes during play.īoard 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. Sometimes, large holes on the ends of the board called stores, are used for holding the pieces. The holes may be referred to as "depressions", "pits", or "houses". Some games are more often played with holes dug in the earth, or carved in stone. The materials include clay and other shapeable materials. General gameplay Ī toguz korgool board with balls, KyrgyzstanĮquipment is typically a board, constructed of various materials, with a series of holes arranged in rows, usually two or four. The word mancala ( Arabic: مِنْقَلَة, romanized: minqalah) is a tool noun derived from an Arabic root naqala ( ن-ق-ل) meaning "to move". This distribution has been linked to migration routes, which may go back several hundred years. Recent studies of mancala rules have given insight into the distribution of mancala. Archeologists may have found evidence of the game Mancala played in Nashville, Tennessee at the Hermitage Plantation. The game was played by enslaved Africans to foster community and develop social skills. The game was brought to the Americas by enslaved Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Historians may have found evidence of Mancala in slave communities of the Americas. It is played to this day in Cape Verdean communities in New England. It is played on the Islands and was brought to the United States by Cape Verdean immigrants. In Cape Verde, mancala is known as "ouril". A traditional mancala game called Warra was still played in Louisiana in the early 20th century, and a commercial version called Kalah became popular in the 1940s. The United States has a larger mancala-playing population. In western Europe, it never caught on but was documented by Oxford University orientalist Thomas Hyde. Two mancala tables from the early 18th century are to be found in Weikersheim Castle in southern Germany. In Estonia, it was once very popular (see " Bohnenspiel"), and likewise in Bosnia (where it is called Ban-Ban and still played today), Serbia, and Greece ("Mandoli", Cyclades). The games existed in especially eastern Europe. Among other early evidence of the game are fragments of a pottery board and several rock cuts found in Aksumite areas in Matara (in Eritrea) and Yeha (in Ethiopia), which are dated by archaeologists to between the 6th and 7th centuries AD the game may have been mentioned by Giyorgis of Segla in his 14th century Geʽez text Mysteries of Heaven and Earth, where he refers to a game called qarqis, a term used in Geʽez to refer to both Gebet'a (mancala) and Sant'araz (modern sent'erazh, Ethiopian chess). Evidence of the game was also uncovered in Israel in the city of Gedera in an excavated Roman bathhouse where pottery boards and rock cuts were unearthed dating back to between the 2nd and 3rd century AD. However, the oldest Mancala boards were found in An Ghazal, Jordan in the floor of a Neolithic dwelling" as early as 5,870 to 240 BC. Ancient Mancala boards were found in Aksumite settlements in Matara, Eritrea, and Yeha, Ethiopia. A 10th century ivory board from Muslim SpainĪccording to the Savannah African Art Museum, "archeological and historical evidence dates Mancala to the year 700 AD in East Africa.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |