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Game History 1: Jono Hey

See here for a short history of Trivial Pursuit

Mankala: the Sowing Game

In 2003 I had the fortune to travel to Kenya for several weeks. We were helping to build a local health center, the greatest benefit of which, to me, was that we were able to get really close to the local villagers. In a town at the foot of Mt Kenya I first met a game that has intrigued me ever since. It’s not easy to say why I knew it was a game, the players could well have been doing some important task like their accounts, but something told me they were playing. The image that sticks with me is three elderly men in the shade of a large tree on the square of grass in between the shacks of farm houses. On the stump of a tree trunk were carved two rows of small holes and the men were intently moving a number of nuts from one hole to the others. They would roll the nuts around in their hands as they moved them and the nuts clicked gently as they rolled into the holes and were pulled back out.

Later I asked a local about the game and he told me the game is called Mankala.

Mankala is a fascinating game that has spread over much of the non-Western world. Its origins are unclear. There is evidence of Mankala being played in Ethiopia in the 6th or 7th century AD from boards that have been scratched into the stone of temples and urns. Some claim that the game can be traced as far back as the Empire Age of the Egyptians in the 11th to 15th century BC, over 3000 years ago, from graffiti.

Mankala is not really a single game, the name Mankala reflects a family of games of varying rules, equipment and customs. The name derives from the Arabic word naqala meaning “to move,” as the overall feature of the game is one of continually moving pieces. Other variations however can be called after the names of the pieces or the names of the board.

Mankala is a sowing game. It is often played with seeds as counters and the action of moving the seeds from hole to hole is very like the action of sowing seeds. In this way, it is a natural extension of the way of life for much of those who play it and reflects the fundamental importance of growing food, tending to crops and the places it is played.

The game’s distribution is one of its peculiarities. It can be found across almost all parts of sub-Saharan Africa, across the Middle East, Arabia and Central and Southeast Asia, aswell as black settlements in the Caribbean. One author calls the game the National Game of Africa. It is interesting that it is so little known in much of the Western World. The game has been passed by the movement of people, travellers, salesman and slaveships. Though the path of the game’s spreading is unsure it is widely agreed that it was only invented once.

The game has never wholly caught on with white people. Some Africans commented that the game was “incomprehensible to a white man,” and early white travellers “gave it up as a bad job.” Despite this, a version of the game, was released in the US in the 20th century by Milton Bradley called chuba, though I have not seen it myself.

The basics

The game primarily involves moving and counting. It has very simple rules yet the number of permutations can evolve rapidly to produce an infinite number of possible games. It is very unlikely to play two identical games of Mankala in a lifetime. The basic rules of play can easily be found and if I were to explain the rules I know I would most likely be explaining only a local variation. For exampe, Townshend explains that “Within 20km of the center of the town of Kisangani in Zaire, for instance, at least four utterly different variants are played.

The short answer is, however, that the game can be played with two players or commonly in teams. The goal is typically to capture the most pieces or to force your opponent into a position where they cannot move. Each move itself involves selecting from one of the holes on your side of the board, picking up the pieces and then placing them one by one in the holes as you move around the board. If your last piece ends in a hole with other pieces, then you pick them up and continue on another ‘lap’. Capturing pieces can be done by ending in an empty hole opposite a full hole on your opponent’s side; you then capture all the pieces in your opponent’s hole. Sowing the seeds, placing each piece in a hole, is a very important activity, and winning the seeds is a sign of wealth and plenty.

The game is a very physical game. Though I first saw it played with beautiful nuts, there are versions played with whatever is locally available including beads, seeds, stones, ivory balls, coins, cowry shells, pottery and young coconuts. Rather than the pieces of injection molded plastic that make up most counters in Western board games, the pieces of Mankala strongly reflect the local environment.

The board typically has two rows of holes, but can have more, and may have two larger holes called ‘banks’ for storing your won pieces. One of the game’s strengths is its versatility; boards are often scratched in the dirt, stones or trees, and I’ve played it on restaurant tables without any physical board. Nevertheless, the board also often reflects important aspects of the culture. Boards are often carved in wood in the shape of important local symbols such as boats or fish, or they can be raised up on feet. Some are made as beautiful ornate works of art and there are Mankala boards plated in gold that belong to local chiefs. The board itself can be somewhat sacred and in some places only particular people are allowed to make them.

In some places the game is called ‘kpo’ which is an explosive sound resembling the noise the pieces make as they clack together and are dropped into the holes, also known as ‘cups’ or ‘houses’. For me, the clicking of the nuts in the Kenyan village evokes the scene as clearly to me as any visual prompt.

A social game

Though I saw Mankala played peacefully, with the odd argument, by several elders, Mankala is traditionally a noisy, social occasion. In some variants, teams can be as large as six and even the members of a team can be confusing for those associated with Western games. The game always attracts a crowd, the audience, and a choir, who discuss the strategies and moves of the players. However, the distinction between the audience and the players can blur as members of the audience will often step in to make a move if they see a player failing to capitalize on an opportunity. On some occasions an older player will turf a younger player out at the key moment if they sense they will make a mistake.

Common games in much of Africa will be noisy, punctuated with jeers and shouts in the crowd, laughter and sometimes fighting. Mankala has the potential to be both a positive stabilizing cultural influence and a destabilizing negative one. The games between neighboring tribes can be very serious occasions indeed, while games parents may play with their children are important means of preserving culture.

The game’s transferrence and longevity is also helped by adults clearly enjoying to play with younger people. It has educational value as it teaches children the basics of counting and arithmetic but at the same time it also transfers the social values of the elders to their children. It is seen that the skills that serve you well in a game of Mankala – cunning, vigilance, foresight, resilience, perseverance, discretion, memory, self-control (Townshend, 1979) – also reflect skills that serve you well in real-life. Mankala then becomes an important game of status and prestige.

In this way, it also helps preserve the status quo of adult male dominance. Often, children will not be allowed near an adult game and the same is true of women. Because of the game’s addictive nature and suitability for gambling it is feared that women and children may succumb to the pleasures of the game and neglect their other duties. In many places Mankala play is seen as an important step in growing up from a child to an adult.

With its wide distribution and vast worldly number of players it is not likely that Mankala reflects a uniform set of social values as the cultures it is played in vary widely. It is suggested that one of the reasons for its popularity is the possibility of local variations through changes in rules and pieces allowing people to create a game suitable to preserve their own culture. Some cultures emphasize more collaborative playing while others are more about conquest and individual skill. Yet one common theme across these cultures is respect for elders.

Mankala’s social significance is also seen in the the practice of making important decisions. In one region, the installation of a new king was surrounded by a ritual where the new king would pick seeds from a particular tree before playing a game of Mankala so he would not be outwitted by his subjects. In another practice, the choice of a new chief among rivals was decided by a game of Mankala. The game is also played at other important occasions such as boys’ initiations, funerals, marriages, births and such. These different occasions and their significance are reflected in some of the language of the game with elements called houses, wives, daughters, widows, inner circle, capture, eat, sow and so on.

A reflection of real skills

A key element in the success of Mankala as a game is that, as mentioned, the skills to play Mankala well are valuable life skills. Should a chief lose to a lesser member of the tribe the chief’s rights are questioned. This influence is greatly strengthened by the social nature of games that can easily attract large crowds. A loss is often a public loss and status is at stake.

Part of the roots of this belief stems from Mankala not being a game of chance. Once the pieces are setup no chance enters into the game; only the skills, cunning and strategy of the players will prevail. With chance removed, winning is a battle of intelligence, or cheating.

Cheating, interestingly, is commonly seen in a different light to normal, in that it is almost expected of the winner to have cheated. The only social stigma attached to this is cheating badly, or getting caught. A skillful cheater is still a good player. As Townshend puts it, “Public reaction to detection is not outrage but derision of the incompetent fool who got caught.

Mankala makes an interesting comparison with more widely played games in the Western world such as chess. While chess is individual, silent, mental and not reflective of great skills outside of chess, Mankala, by contrast is social, noisy, physical and good players are seen to have valuable real-life skills.

References

Townshend, P. African Mankala in Anthropological Perspective. Current Anthropology, 20(4), December 1979, pp.794-796

Mancala on Wikipedia

Culin, S. Mancala, The National Game of Africa, Report of the National Museum, 1894 at the University of Waterloo Museum (cached on Google)

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February 2007