Mancala: The National Game of Africa

The visitor to the little Syrian colony in Washington street in New York City will often find two men intent upon this game. They call it Mancala. The implements are a board with two rows of cup-shaped depressions and a handful or so of pebbles or shells, which they transfer from one hole to another with much rapidity. A lad from Damascus described to me the methods of play. There are two principal ways, which depend upon the manner in which the pieces are distributed at the commencement of the game. Two persons always engage, and ninety-eight cowrie shells (wada) or pebbles (hajdar) are used. One game is called La’b madjnuni, or the “Crazy game.” The players seat themselves with the board placed lengthwise between them. One distributes the pieces in the fourteen holes, called bute, “houses,” not less than two being placed in one hole. This player then takes all the pieces from the hole at the right of his row, G, called el ras, “the head,” and drops them one at a time into the holes on the opposite side, commencing with a, b, c, and so on. If any remain after he has put one in each of the holes on the opposite side, he continues around on his own row A, B, C. When he has dropped his last piece he takes all the pieces in that hole and continues dropping them around as before. This is done until one of two things happens—his last piece drops into an empty hole, when he stops and his opponent plays, or it drops into a hole containing one or three pieces, completing two or four. In that case he takes the two or four pieces with those in the hole opposite, and if one or more of the holes that follow contains two or four without the intervention of a hole with any other number, he takes their contents with those opposite. The second player takes from the hole g, and…