Anywoli → Italian.
| Anywoli |
| First Description: Richard Pankhurst, 1971 |
| Cycles: One |
| Ranks: Two |
| Sowing: Multiple laps |
| Region: Western Ethiopia, Sudan |
Anywoli (literally birthing) is a mancala game of the Anuak who live in the Ethiopian province of Gambela in the far west of the country and across the Sudanese border in Akobo, Pochalla and Jokau. They count about 78,000 people and are traditionally peasants, fishermen and hunters. The western part of their kingdom was annexed by the British in 1898, while the eastern part was occupied by Ethiopia with French help. The western Anuak are today victims of a genocide which is inflicted upon them by Muslims from Northern Sudan.
Anywoli is related to games played in Nigeria and Ghana such as Ba-awa and Obridjie. It was first described by Richard Pankhurst in 1971.
Rules
The game is played on a board which has 2x12 holes called oto (plural udi; meaning "houses"). Initially there are four seeds in each hole. The seeds are called nyibaré ("children of the board game").
Initial Position
Players take turns moving the seeds.
On a turn, a player chooses one of the holes under their control. The player removes all seeds from this hole, and distributes them, one by one, in each pit counter-clockwise in consecutive holes. Seeds are not distributed into the store. If the last seed ends in an occupied hole, then all the seeds in that hole including the last one are resown starting from that hole. These multiple turns continue until the sowing process ends, either in an empty hole or a capture of four seeds.
If at any time during sowing, a hole has exactly four seeds, all four are immediately captured and removed from play by the player who owns this hole. There can be many such captures during sowing. Also, if the last hole sown into then has four seeds, these four seeds are captured by the player who was moving.
The player who captured the last group of four but one, also gets the last four seeds and the game ends.
The player who captured most seeds has won the game.
References
- Pankhurst, R.
- Gabata and Related Board Games of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. In: Ethiopia Observer 1971; 14 (3): 203.
Copyright
© Wikimanqala.
By: Ralf Gering.
Under the CC by-sa 2.5.