The word mancala ( Arabic: مِنْقَلَة, romanized: minqalah) is a tool noun derived from an Arabic root naqala ( ن-ق-ل) meaning "to move". This distribution has been linked to migration routes, which may go back several hundred years. Recent studies of mancala rules have given insight into the distribution of mancala. Archeologists may have found evidence of the game Mancala played in Nashville, Tennessee at the Hermitage Plantation. The game was played by enslaved Africans to foster community and develop social skills. The game was brought to the Americas by enslaved Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Historians may have found evidence of Mancala in slave communities of the Americas. It is played to this day in Cape Verdean communities in New England. It is played on the Islands and was brought to the United States by Cape Verdean immigrants. In Cape Verde, mancala is known as "ouril". A traditional mancala game called Warra was still played in Louisiana in the early 20th century, and a commercial version called Kalah became popular in the 1940s. The United States has a larger mancala-playing population. In western Europe, it never caught on but was documented by Oxford University orientalist Thomas Hyde. Two mancala tables from the early 18th century are to be found in Weikersheim Castle in southern Germany. In Estonia, it was once very popular (see " Bohnenspiel"), and likewise in Bosnia (where it is called Ban-Ban and still played today), Serbia, and Greece ("Mandoli", Cyclades). The games existed in especially eastern Europe. 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 Geʽez text Mysteries of Heaven and Earth, where he refers to a game called qarqis, a term used in Geʽez to refer to both Gebet'a (mancala) and Sant'araz (modern sent'erazh, Ethiopian chess). Evidence of the game was also 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. However, the oldest Mancala boards were found in An Ghazal, Jordan in the floor of a Neolithic dwelling" as early as 5,870 to 240 BC. Ancient Mancala boards were found in Aksumite settlements in Matara, Eritrea, and Yeha, Ethiopia. So how is this game played? The player with the most shells at their head (home base) at the end of the game is the winner, but the rules can be confusing for beginners, especially if your math skills are as brilliant as mine.A 10th century ivory board from Muslim SpainĪccording to the Savannah African Art Museum, "archeological and historical evidence dates Mancala to the year 700 AD in East Africa. You may purchase online from Lazada or Shopee. Keep the game of sunkga alive in our culture by getting your own set. Remember when board game cafés were all the rage in Manila? I was disappointed not to see a sungka set in the spots I visited. If passed, we will see annual tournaments of indigenous sports, including sungka. 6192, which aims to be the Philippine Indigenous Games Preservation Act. The Philippine government has proposed the House Bill No. I sound like an old fart when I complain that they’re too glued to their gadgets and apps. In Manila, I rarely see Filipino kids play classic Filipino games. Folklore forbids playing sungka indoors because it could cause your house to burn down in an accident. Like most Asian countries, Filipinos are superstitious. Sungka is similar to other Asian mancala games such as congak (played in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Southern Thailand, and Indonesia), chongka (from Marianas), and chonka (from Sri Lanka). The closest I got to playing sungka was a digital version back in 2000-the bantumi game in my Nokia 3310 mobile phone (time warp!). All I could do was watch the other kids play. My parents forbade me to play with sungka as a kid because Filipino-Chinese businessmen considered it bad luck to own one. The player with the most shells in their head (home base) at the end of the game is the winner.Īs I unwrapped it, I realized I didn’t really know how to play this game. Sunkga is a traditional Filipino mancala game. Still wrapped in plastic with its ₱130 price tag, my oblong-shaped traditional Filipino board game was gathering dust. I was decluttering when I found this toy I purchased from Dagupan in 2008-a sungka (pronounced as soong-kah) set.
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