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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 games of this family 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 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 several games of this type; the word literally means "to lose". This word is used in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Mombasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Malawi, 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 usually refers to "games in the mancala family" or "mancala games", rather than "mancala variants" which implies 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 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 the final hole. 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". Frequently, 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 || || || || |} |- | align=center |Before sowing. |- ||

|- | align=center |After sowing. |}