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. The best known List of mancala games in the West are Oware, Kalah, Omweso, and Bao. Mancala games play a role in many African and some Asian societies comparable to that of chess in the West. == Names == People unfamiliar with mancala games commonly assume there is a particular game with the name ''Mancala''. This perception is not helped by marketing which often fails to differentiate variations or gives meaningless names like "Ethiopian" or "Nigerian". Even names which are rightly associated with certain games, such as "Awari", are frequently lifted and applied to different games. In fact, the name ''mancala'' is the Arab name commonly given to some games of this type; the word comes form the arabic word ''naqala'' (literally "to move"). This word is used at least in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, but is not consistently applied to any one game. In the West, "mancala" is often seen used as a generic name for the game "kalah". Research in English (language) refers to "games in the mancala family" or "mancala games", rather than "mancala variants" which would imply there is one main mancala game on which the others are based. Adding to the confusion, widespread mancala games may go by different names in different regions, often with slight rules variations. Then, there are groups that give multiple games the same name; sometimes one is intended to be played by men, another by women. Historically, researchers have had difficulty separating the rules for games apart from strategic implications or favored setups, which has caused additional confusion over which games are distinct, or which names refer to the same game. Because of these considerations, and the fact that mancala games have reached the West from these multiple cultures, it is difficult to establish what names and rules, if any, are the "proper" ones. The names of individual games often come from the equipment used; for instance, ''bao'' is the Swahili language word meaning "board". == General gameplay == Mancala games share a general gameplay sequence of ''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. === Equipment === 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". Some times, large holes on the ends of the board, called ''stores'', are used for holding captured pieces. Playing pieces are ''seeds'', beans, stones, or other small undifferentiated counters that are placed in and transferred about the holes during play. 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. === Object === The object of mancala games is usually to capture more seeds than the opponent; sometimes, one seeks to leave the opponent with no legal move in order to win. === Sowing ===
==The name== I found a nice public domain (written in 1894) source [http://gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Archive/Culin/Mancla1894/ "Mancala, The National Game of Africa"]. It says: ::''Mancala, the name which the Syrians give to this game, is a common Arabic word and means in this connection the "Game of transferring."'' This makes sense to me. The Arabic root "nql" is indeed about transferring, moving and carrying (as far as I know with my beginner's level Arabic). On the other hand, the explanation currently given in the wikipedia article, that this word means losing in Arabic doesn't make sense to me. Can someone point me to the source of this explanation? By the way, should we perhaps link to that public domain article? User:Nyh The "explanation" that mancala means in Arabic "to lose" remains on the page... Like I said in the paragraph above, I am disputing this "fact". Can someone else please confirm the "to lose" meaning, or agree that the explanation needs changing? User:Nyh 21:42, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC) I see that someone just modified the article to say that the verb begins "to move", not "to lose". That's what I thought. User:Nyh ==Artificial version of Awari== Awari (Artificial version of oware/wari invented by computer scientists) :I removed this, because I can't find anything to indicate Awari in its most widely used sense is different from Warri, Wari, Oware, et al. I'd love to see evidence to the contrary, however. User:Kevin Saff 04:24, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC) :PS 24 April - there is at least one minor variation between the game solved by the CS guys and that in championship level games. Not sure this warrants mention as an "invented game" though. User:Kevin Saff 04:11, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC) ==Age of mancala== There's a discrepancy in the History sections of Mancala and Oware. Mancala says 'Even less is known about the age of the family of games, which is generally placed as between 1000 and 3000 years' while Oware says 'The mancala family of games has been in existence for at least 7000 years'. User:Bwallberg 01:54, 2004 Apr 24 (UTC) :You're right. Sources seem to disagree about the age of this game. HJR Murray's ''History of board games other than chess'' supports the view of extreme age, while there is a more recent important paper published in a journal called "Board Game Studies" (or something like that) that claims there is little substantial evidence for an age older than 1000. Unfortunately, I have not yet found an opportunity to see ''either'' of these sources first-hand, so I don't know which age is likely better, nor how to present the issues... User:Kevin Saff 04:11, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC) :: I've read the Murray book, but not the recent paper. However based on my own work I would agree with the later date. One of Murray's key pieces of evidence (the board at the temple of karnak dating 1400bc) seems to be considered unreliable these days. --User:Imran 10:06, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC) I think I'll try to make it clear on both pages that the age is fuzzy, until we get better information. Either that, or copy frequent practice of claiming it's older than sex, without reference. User:Kevin Saff 14:59, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC) --------- Hi, I'm the owner of [http://manqala.org manqala.org] and I've just registered on this wiki to try to arrange information about mancala games. --User:Viktor 12:55, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Mancala is the name given to a family of board games. Board games
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
Words begining with Mancala:
Mancala
Mancala
Mancala
Mancala_2x5
Mancala_2x6
Mancala_2x6_plus_2
Mancala_4x8
Mancala_games
Mancala_hole
Mancala_hole.xcf
Mancala_hole_0
Mancala_hole_0y
Mancala_hole_1
Mancala_hole_10
Mancala_hole_11
Mancala_hole_12
Mancala_hole_13
Mancala_hole_14
Mancala_hole_15
Mancala_hole_1y
Mancala_hole_2
Mancala_hole_2y
Mancala_hole_3
Mancala_hole_3y
Mancala_hole_4
Mancala_hole_4y
Mancala_hole_5
Mancala_hole_5y
Mancala_hole_6
Mancala_hole_6y
Mancala_hole_7
Mancala_hole_8
Mancala_hole_9
Mancala_Hole_Diagram
Mancala_Hole_Diagram
Mancala_labeled_2x6
Mancala
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. The best known List of mancala games in the West are Oware, Kalah, Omweso, and Bao. Mancala games play a role in many African and some Asian societies comparable to that of chess in the West. == Names == People unfamiliar with mancala games commonly assume there is a particular game with the name ''Mancala''. This perception is not helped by marketing which often fails to differentiate variations or gives meaningless names like "Ethiopian" or "Nigerian". Even names which are rightly associated with certain games, such as "Awari", are frequently lifted and applied to different games. In fact, the name ''mancala'' is the Arab name commonly given to some games of this type; the word comes form the arabic word ''naqala'' (literally "to move"). This word is used at least in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, but is not consistently applied to any one game. In the West, "mancala" is often seen used as a generic name for the game "kalah". Research in English (language) refers to "games in the mancala family" or "mancala games", rather than "mancala variants" which would imply there is one main mancala game on which the others are based. Adding to the confusion, widespread mancala games may go by different names in different regions, often with slight rules variations. Then, there are groups that give multiple games the same name; sometimes one is intended to be played by men, another by women. Historically, researchers have had difficulty separating the rules for games apart from strategic implications or favored setups, which has caused additional confusion over which games are distinct, or which names refer to the same game. Because of these considerations, and the fact that mancala games have reached the West from these multiple cultures, it is difficult to establish what names and rules, if any, are the "proper" ones. The names of individual games often come from the equipment used; for instance, ''bao'' is the Swahili language word meaning "board". == General gameplay == Mancala games share a general gameplay sequence of ''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. === Equipment === 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". Some times, large holes on the ends of the board, called ''stores'', are used for holding captured pieces. Playing pieces are ''seeds'', beans, stones, or other small undifferentiated counters that are placed in and transferred about the holes during play. 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. === Object === The object of mancala games is usually to capture more seeds than the opponent; sometimes, one seeks to leave the opponent with no legal move in order to win. === Sowing ===
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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 continues 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.
=== Capturing ===
Depending on the last hole sown in a lap, a player may ''capture'' seeds from the board. The exact requirements for capture, as well as what is done with captured seeds, vary considerably among games. Typically, a capture requires sowing to end in a hole with a certain number of seeds, or ending across the board from seeds in specific configurations.
Other way to capture often seen is capturing 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.
== History ==
The history of mancala is unclear. It probably arose in northern Africa or the middle east between 1000 and 3000 years ago. The similarity of some aspects of the game to agriculture 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.
Although the games existed in pockets in Europe -- it is recorded as being played as early as the 17th century by merchants in England -- it has never gained much popularity there, exept in the Baltic area, where once it was a very popular game (das Bohnenspiel). The United States has a larger mancala playing population, although many of these players are descendants of enslaved Africans. Perhaps the unfamiliarity with mancala games in the west is in part due to historic prejudice against primitives; the assumption being that these games could not require any serious mental skill. The 1961 edition of Goren's Hoyle, which itself ascribes an Arab origin to the games, perhaps expresses a common sentiment upon discovery of the games' depth:
:''The anthropologists have not undertaken to explain how it happens that the universal game of primitive peoples is one of pure intellectual skill. Mancala is wholly mathematical, akin to the game of nim from a pile in an endeavor to win the last, but so complex as to remain a real contest.''
== Analysis ==
Sowing games can be analyzed using combinatorial game theory: see Jeff Erickson's article "Sowing Games" [http://compgeom.cs.uiuc.edu/~jeffe/pubs/sowing.html].
== See also ==
* List of mancala games
== Bibliography ==
*Jeff Erickson, Sowing Games, in ''Games of No Chance'', Cambridge University Press, 1998 [http://compgeom.cs.uiuc.edu/~jeffe/pubs/sowing.html].
*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.
== External links ==
*[http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/classic/mancala.html A great introduction from MSO.]
*[http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1134/n1_v107/20517880/p1/article.jhtml?term= Excellent history by Alex de Voogt.]
*[http://www.oware.org/ Oware society]
*[http://manqala.org/ A web site about mancala games]
*[http://www.manqala.org/wiki/index.php/MancalaGames Many rules from a mancala games mailing list]
*[http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Mancala.htm Mancala page at Traditional Games.]
*[http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/~museum/countcap/pages/index.html General information on "Count and Capture Games"]
*[http://www.driedger.ca/mankala/Man-0.html Mankala in East Africa, an informative online book (in HTML and PDF).]
*[http://www.junglephotos.com/africa/afpeople/afhandicrafts/chisolo.shtml Photo and information on chisolo, the version of mancala played in Malawi]
Board games
Mancala
simple:Mancala
Mancala
==The name== I found a nice public domain (written in 1894) source [http://gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Archive/Culin/Mancla1894/ "Mancala, The National Game of Africa"]. It says: ::''Mancala, the name which the Syrians give to this game, is a common Arabic word and means in this connection the "Game of transferring."'' This makes sense to me. The Arabic root "nql" is indeed about transferring, moving and carrying (as far as I know with my beginner's level Arabic). On the other hand, the explanation currently given in the wikipedia article, that this word means losing in Arabic doesn't make sense to me. Can someone point me to the source of this explanation? By the way, should we perhaps link to that public domain article? User:Nyh The "explanation" that mancala means in Arabic "to lose" remains on the page... Like I said in the paragraph above, I am disputing this "fact". Can someone else please confirm the "to lose" meaning, or agree that the explanation needs changing? User:Nyh 21:42, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC) I see that someone just modified the article to say that the verb begins "to move", not "to lose". That's what I thought. User:Nyh ==Artificial version of Awari== Awari (Artificial version of oware/wari invented by computer scientists) :I removed this, because I can't find anything to indicate Awari in its most widely used sense is different from Warri, Wari, Oware, et al. I'd love to see evidence to the contrary, however. User:Kevin Saff 04:24, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC) :PS 24 April - there is at least one minor variation between the game solved by the CS guys and that in championship level games. Not sure this warrants mention as an "invented game" though. User:Kevin Saff 04:11, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC) ==Age of mancala== There's a discrepancy in the History sections of Mancala and Oware. Mancala says 'Even less is known about the age of the family of games, which is generally placed as between 1000 and 3000 years' while Oware says 'The mancala family of games has been in existence for at least 7000 years'. User:Bwallberg 01:54, 2004 Apr 24 (UTC) :You're right. Sources seem to disagree about the age of this game. HJR Murray's ''History of board games other than chess'' supports the view of extreme age, while there is a more recent important paper published in a journal called "Board Game Studies" (or something like that) that claims there is little substantial evidence for an age older than 1000. Unfortunately, I have not yet found an opportunity to see ''either'' of these sources first-hand, so I don't know which age is likely better, nor how to present the issues... User:Kevin Saff 04:11, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC) :: I've read the Murray book, but not the recent paper. However based on my own work I would agree with the later date. One of Murray's key pieces of evidence (the board at the temple of karnak dating 1400bc) seems to be considered unreliable these days. --User:Imran 10:06, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC) I think I'll try to make it clear on both pages that the age is fuzzy, until we get better information. Either that, or copy frequent practice of claiming it's older than sex, without reference. User:Kevin Saff 14:59, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC) --------- Hi, I'm the owner of [http://manqala.org manqala.org] and I've just registered on this wiki to try to arrange information about mancala games. --User:Viktor 12:55, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Mancala
Mancala is the name given to a family of board games. Board games
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
M
MA | MB | MC | MD | ME | MF | MG | MH | MI | MJ | MK | ML | MN | MO | MP | MR | MS | MT | MU | MW | MX | MY | MZ |Words begining with Mancala:
Mancala
Mancala
Mancala
Mancala_2x5
Mancala_2x6
Mancala_2x6_plus_2
Mancala_4x8
Mancala_games
Mancala_hole
Mancala_hole.xcf
Mancala_hole_0
Mancala_hole_0y
Mancala_hole_1
Mancala_hole_10
Mancala_hole_11
Mancala_hole_12
Mancala_hole_13
Mancala_hole_14
Mancala_hole_15
Mancala_hole_1y
Mancala_hole_2
Mancala_hole_2y
Mancala_hole_3
Mancala_hole_3y
Mancala_hole_4
Mancala_hole_4y
Mancala_hole_5
Mancala_hole_5y
Mancala_hole_6
Mancala_hole_6y
Mancala_hole_7
Mancala_hole_8
Mancala_hole_9
Mancala_Hole_Diagram
Mancala_Hole_Diagram
Mancala_labeled_2x6
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