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OWARIE
a brief history
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‘a peece of wood, certaine great holes cut, which they set

upon the ground betwixt two of them, and with a number of
some thirty pibble stones, after a manner of counting, they
take one from the other, untill one is possessed of all, whereat
some of them are wondrous nimble’
Richard Jobson Golden Trade
An English Explorer Of West Africa.
An Expedition Up The Gambia River In 1620

In his study of Western Saharan myths, P.F. de Moraes Farias

revealed the error of underestimating contacts between
medieval western Sudanese populations and the Almoravid
rulers of Marrakesh. Likewise, H.T. Norris' discussions of
perennial Saharan myths, sagas, and tribal chronicles has
delineated patterns and recurrent motifs in the "Saharan
mind" which apparently owed much to ancient semitic,
Yementie, and late medieval oriental Arabic romances.
B. Marie Perinbam
Bonduku - An Important Town In The State Of Gyaman.
In late medieval and early modern times West Africa was one
of the principal suppliers of gold to the world bullion market.
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In this context the Matter of Bitu is one of much importance.
Bitu lay on the frontiers of the Malian world and was one of its
most flourishing gold marts. So much is clear from sixteenth-
and seventeenth-century writings, both African and European.
… the gold trade at Bitu was controlled by the Wangara, who
played a central role in organizing trade between the Akan
goldfields and the towns of the Western Sudan. It is shown
that Bitu cannot be other than Bighu (Begho, Bew, etc.), the
abandoned Wangara town lying on the northwestern fringes
of the Akan forest country, which is known (from excavation)
to have flourished in the relevant period. In the late fifteenth
century the Portuguese established posts on the southern
shores of the Akan country, so challenging the monopolistic
position which the Wangara had hitherto enjoyed in the gold
trade.

Ivor Wilks
Wangara, Akan And Portuguese. In The Fifteenth And
Sixteenth Centuries. The Struggle For Trade
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OWARIE OR MANCALA

Mancala is a generic name for a family of two-player turn-

based strategy board games played with small stones, beans,
or seeds and rows of holes or pits in the earth, a board or
other playing surface. The objective is usually to capture all or
some set of the opponent's pieces.

Most mancala games share a common general game play.

Players begin by placing a certain number of seeds, prescribed
for the particular game, in each of the pits on the game board.
A player may count their stones to plot the game. A turn
consists of removing all seeds from a pit, "sowing" the seeds
(placing one in each of the following pits in sequence) and
capturing based on the state of the board. The object of the
game is to plant the most seeds in the bank. 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.

If playing in capture mode, once a player ends their turn in an

empty pit on their own side, they capture the opponent's
pieces directly across. Once captured, the player gets to put
the seeds in their own bank. After capturing, the opponent
forfeits a turn.

Wikipedia Mancala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancala

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The equipment is typically a board, constructed of various
materials, with a series of holes arranged in rows, usually two
or four. The materials include clay and other shapeable
materials. 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". Sometimes, large holes
on the ends of the board, called stores, are used for holding
the pieces.

Playing pieces are seeds, beans, stones, cowry shells, half-

marbles or other small undifferentiated counters that are
placed in and transferred about the holes during play.

Versions of the game date back to the 7th century and

evidence suggests the game existed in ancient Egypt. It is
among the oldest known games to still be widely played today.

Evidence of the game was uncovered in Israel in the city of

Gedera in an excavated Roman bathhouse where pottery
boards and rock cuts were unearthed dating back to between
the 2nd and 3rd century AD. Among other early evidence of
the game are fragments of a pottery board and several rock
cuts found in Aksumite areas in Matara (in Eritrea) and Yeha
(in Ethiopia), which are dated by archaeologists to between
the 6th and 7th centuries AD; the game may have been
mentioned by Giyorgis of Segla in his 14th century text
Mysteries of Heaven and Earth, referring to Gebet'a (mancala)
and Sant'araz (modern sent'erazh, Ethiopian chess)
Wikipedia Mancala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancala
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An Akan Gold Weight

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1817, by Thomas E. Bowdich

Asante Architecture. Two Asante Men Playing Oware.
From Mali And The Akan
Though the game as recounted by the Diabaté djelis or griots
of Kela; the repositories of oral tradition and advisors to royal
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personages, plays an important role in the Epic of Sundjata
(c.1210-1255 or 1260), the first king and founder of the Mali
Empire, Oware or Mancala is often attributed to the Akan
from where it was exported to Cape Verde, the Caribbean and
South America through the slave trade.

Other Names
Abapa, Adji, Kui, Aghi, A-i-ú, Alé, Aualé, Awalé, Aware, Awari,
Awélé,
Ayo, Ayoayo, Ayo Olopon,
Kboo, Kpoo, Kuoless, Langa-holo, Òrè, Ori,
Uale, Uali, Uri, Urim, Urin, Urinca,
Wahree, Walé, Walle, Waré, Wari, Warra,
Warri, Wa-wee, Woaley, Woll, Wolo,
Wora, Wori, Woro

We find in most of West Africa and the Caribbean the game

and closely related variants of the name Owari is known and
loved going on in the last couple of decades to gain
importance as well as sponsorships in tournaments held
annually.
The game require two rows of symmetrical holes, either dug
directly into the earth, or carved into a wooden board or even
more rarely, chiselled in stone or cast out of metal. The carved
boards often take the shape of a canoe, a trough, or an arch,
sometimes decorated with figures of men and women, huts of
a village, or animal figures from folklore.
https://www.culturesofwestafrica.com/mancala-games-
daytime-play-nighttime-ritual/
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Fish-Shaped Board Made Of Wood By The Guro People

Of Ivory Coast In The 1980s.
African Oware boards are often carved from Osese wood;
the Holarrhena floribunda.
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The game requires an oval board of two straight rows of six
holes called houses set at the start to carry four seedpods
each making a total of 48 seeds which could be gathered in
two larger holes at the edges of the board.
Distributed played counter-clockwise in the holes of the board
the pebbles or counters used traditionally are the seeds of the
Nicker Tree and The Nickernut, the Casalpinia Crista.

The Nicker Tree And

The Nickernut, The Casalpinia Crista
 MANCALA KITAB AL-AGHANI
Book Of Songs Page | 11
A 10th Century Arabic Collection Of Poetic Verse

The word mancala referring to the game first appeared in the

tenth century in the Kitab al-Aghani (The Book of Songs), an
Arabic collection of poetic verse. Indeed, the name “mancala”,
a name used by many African societies to indicate this broad
category of games, derives from the arabic word “naqala”,
meaning “to move” or “to transfer”. One could conclude that
Arabs were the ones who diffused the game.
https://www.culturesofwestafrica.com/mancala-games-
daytime-play-nighttime-ritual/

Mancala is still a popular game today, especially in parts of

Africa and Asia. It's played by moving counters, marbles or
seeds among the pits of the game board, capturing an
opponent's pieces, and moving pieces off the board to win the
game.

https://www.livescience.com/64266-ancient-board-
games.html
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In 1623 in his account Golden Trade an English explorer of
West Africa who wrote of his expedition up the Gambia River
in 1620:
"In the heat of the day, the men will come forth and sit
themselves in companies, under the shady trees, to receive
the fresh aire, and there passe the time in communication,
having only one kind of game to recreate themselves withall,
and that is a peece of wood, certaine great holes cut, which
they set upon the ground betwixt two of them, and with a
number of some thirty pibble stones, after a manner of
counting, they take one from the other, untill one is possessed
of all, whereat some of them are wondrous nimble."
Richard Jobson Golden Trade
An English explorer of West Africa.
An expedition up the Gambia River in 1620
 Page | 13

… the gold trade at Bitu was controlled by the Wangara, who

played a central role in organizing trade between the Akan
goldfields and the towns of the Western Sudan. It is shown
that Bitu cannot be other than Bighu (Begho, Bew, etc.), the
abandoned Wangara town lying on the northwestern fringes
of the Akan forest country, which is known (from excavation)
to have flourished in the relevant period. In the late fifteenth
century the Portuguese established posts on the southern
shores of the Akan country, so challenging the monopolistic
position which the Wangara had hitherto enjoyed in the gold
trade.

Ivor Wilks
Wangara, Akan And Portuguese. In The Fifteenth And
Sixteenth centuries. The Struggle For Trade.
 Page | 14
In 1701 after the battle of Feyiase when Denkyira’s hegemony
was broken by the Asante, the King of Juaben Yiadom Adarkwa
to show domination over the mining, accumulation and trade
of gold used golden counters instead of the forty-eight
seedpods.

Warie - Akan (Asanti)

It means tall;
It also means "marry". Awarie meaning marriage.

Katakyie Opoku Ware I the second king of the Asante

Amongst the Akan the famous Katakyie Opoku Ware I
employed bouts of the board game accompanied by the
singing of groups of servants of his court to mediate disputes
between married couples on the verge of separation.
Perceptions Of Bonduku’s Contribution
To The Western Sudanese Gold Trade:
An Assessment Of The Evidence
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On his way back from Mossi country in 1888, Louis Binger

visited Bonduku, principal town of the Akan state of Gyaman.
… to the southerly mines in the Bonduku and Asante regions.
He noticed, for example, that gold was the "almost exclusive"
payment for European merchandise abounding in local
markets.
"Not a day passes," he continued, but that commercial
transactions--at his host's residence, or at any other house
chosen at random--were concluded, involving gold as the
exchange medium. Bonduku's inhabitants, moreover, adorned
themselves with gold. Taxes were paid in gold. So ubiquitous
was the precious metal in fact, that to the best of Binger's
know ledge, "everyone" in Bonduku possessed a scale and
weights. To the west, in a nearby village, a commercial loan
could easily be obtained of ten, fifteen, or twenty ounces
(1,000 francs, 1,500 francs, 2,000 francs). In another nearby
village a trader, com plaining that he had just lost twenty gold
ounces to a thief, still expressed gratitude that the latter had
not found his real cache. And as if that were not enough, the
penalty for adultery was three to four ounces of gold (300 to
400 francs). Gold ore was apparently easy of access. While
some nuggets were panned in nearby alluvial soils by villagers
living along or near river banks, the more distant gold came
from the ore rich Loby (Black Volta) and Gurunsi regions.
In his study of Western Saharan myths, P.F. de Moraes Farias
revealed the error of underestimating contacts between
medieval western Sudanese populations and the Almoravid
rulers of Marrakesh. Likewise, H.T. Norris' discussions of
perennial Saharan myths, sagas, and tribal chronicles has
delineated patterns and recurrent motifs in the "Saharan
mind" which apparently owed much to ancient semitic,
Yementie and late medieval oriental Arabic romances.
B. Marie Perinbam
 THE AWARI ORACLE

Game Theory. Combinatorics. Page | 16

In the 1990s, a variant called Awari was created by computer
scientists John W. Romein and Henri E. Bal.
Dutch computer scientists from Amsterdam's Vrije
Universiteit developed a program that computes the best
move and eventual outcome for all 889,063,398,406 positions
that can possibly occur in a game. With their applet, play a
game against a potentially infallible opponent, and look up the
eventual score of every position that can be reached in a
game. With rules, statistics on the database, information
about the construction of the databases, and other
documentation.
John W. Romein and Henri E. Bal proved that perfect play is a
draw. A public Java applet, the Awari Oracle, is based on data
found by Romein and Bal.

MATH FORUM
INTERNET MATHEMATICS LIBRARY
The Math Forum has a rich history as an online hub for the
mathematics education community. A debt of gratitude is
owed to the dedicated staff who created and maintained the
top math education content and community forums that made
up the Math Forum since its inception.
 Page | 17

Mancala Pit Marks In Ancient Gebeta In

The Base Of An Aksumite Stele, Ethiopia

Muslim Spain 10th Century Ivory Board

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Bao Players In Zanzibar

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Excavation At Neolithic 'Ain Ghazal, 1988-89

A Game Board Found During The 1989 Excavation Season At
Cain Ghazal, Jordan In A Neolithic Context.

It is a subrectangular stone slab with two rows of six

depressions, resembling the modern-day mancala or wari
game boards in use throughout the Arab world and Africa. The
game board has parallels with game boards from Neolithic and
Bronze Age sites in the Near East.
Archaeological specimens of game boards are numerous
throughout the Near and Middle East. However, except for
those found during the past few decades, most of the earliest
examples come from the great civilizations of Mesopotamia
around 2500 B.c. and Egypt in the 14th century B.C. (Grunfeld
1975). More recent excavations, on the other hand, have
turned up a considerable number of game boards from areas
between these "cusps of the fertile crescent," particularly in
Palestine, Jordan, and Cyprus (Kirkbride 1966; Amiran 1978;
Lee 1982; MacDonald 1988; Swiny 1980).Ain Ghazal is a well-
known site on the northeastern outskirts of Amman, where
two complete game boards came from. The ancient
Nabataeans scratched what looks like game boards into flat
surfaces all over the city. And they can be found all over the
city. Depressions pecked about a centimeter in the limestone
and had a diameter of almost an inch, the rows converge from
the wider end toward the narrower end of the board.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/135711
 Petra, the City Of Board Games

At the Second Annual Conference for Nabataean Studies, Dr.

Bilal Khrisat of the Hashemite University, presented a paper Page | 20
that introduced the conference to the various board games
that are found in ancient Petra.

One of the many game boards in Petra. It appears that this

board is 4 holes by 14 holes. For size, note the pop bottle cap
above the board.

This 4 X 12 game board can be found on a small rock hill in

front of the Monastery. (Deir). It is quite sharp, and is either
well preserved, (it is in a sheltered location) or quite recent.
https://nabataea.net/explore/petra/petra-city-of-board-
games/
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Dogon, Gameboards (Mankala) (Mancala, Wari), Mali

In addition to the numerous types of masks and figures used

traditionally … game boards are usually simple forms but
beautiful and often weathered by age and use.
The game boards range from everyday objects with
monumental, simple forms to ornate pieces bringing status to
the owner.
https://www.hamillgallery.com/SITE/Gameboards.html
 Page | 22

‘a peece of wood, certaine great holes cut, which they set

upon the ground betwixt two of them, and with a number of
some thirty pibble stones, after a manner of counting, they
take one from the other, untill one is possessed of all, whereat
some of them are wondrous nimble’
Richard Jobson Golden Trade
An English explorer of West Africa.
An expedition up the Gambia River in 1620

In his study of Western Saharan myths, P.F. de Moraes Farias

revealed the error of underestimating contacts between
medieval western Sudanese populations and the Almoravid
rulers of Marrakesh. Likewise, H.T. Norris' discussions of
perennial Saharan myths, sagas, and tribal chronicles has
delineated patterns and recurrent motifs in the "Saharan
mind" which apparently owed much to ancient semitic,
Yementie, and late medieval oriental Arabic romances.
B. Marie Perinbam
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