Adji Kui I
Game type: Two-row Afro-Cuban mancala (Matanzas, Cuba) — single-lap counter-clockwise sowing from pits with two or more seeds, backward-chaining captures of twos and threes in the opponent's row, and passing on singleton-only positions.
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Overview
Adji Kui designates two rare, culturally significant Afro-Cuban mancala games preserved in and around the historic port city of Matanzas, Cuba. Documented in 1991 by Cuban musicologist and ethnologist Ruth Magalys Wilson Ferrer, these games survived across centuries within an intimate circle of families of Arará descent. Unlike the indigenous Arara peoples of the Brazilian Amazon, Cuba's Arará community represents the proud lineage of Fon, Ewe, Popo, and Mina ancestors transported from the Slave Coast of the Bight of Benin (contemporary Benin and Togo) during the transatlantic slave trade. The name Adji directly reflects the ancestral Ewe and Fon word for mancala, testifying to the enduring strength of West African cultural traditions preserved within Afro-Cuban domestic life.
The first variant, Adji Kui I, belongs firmly to the Oware family while exhibiting distinctive regional adaptations. Play is carried out on a store-less board of twelve pits. Unlike classical Oware, singletons (holes containing only one seed) are strictly prohibited from moving; a player who commands only singletons or empty holes must pass their turn. Captures mirror the familiar backward cascade across opponent holes holding two or three seeds, and the game terminates when the dwindling stones cycle indefinitely around the board, with each player claiming the remaining seeds on their own side.
Board
- Ranks/rows: Two
- Holes per row: 6 (12 holes total)
- Stores: None
- Seeds per hole at start: 4
- Total seeds: 48
- Each player controls the row of six holes nearest to them.
How to Play
- Players take turns moving counter-clockwise around the twelve holes.
- On their turn, an active player selects any hole on their own side containing two or more seeds (singletons cannot be sown).
- The player picks up all seeds from the chosen hole and sows them one by one into the subsequent holes counter-clockwise.
- Sowing concludes after a single lap; there is no relay sowing.
- If a player holds only singletons or entirely empty holes on their turn, they have no legal moves and must pass.
Capturing
- If the final seed of a sowing falls into an opponent's hole and brings its contents to two or three seeds, those seeds are captured immediately.
- Backward chain: If the hole immediately preceding the landing hole in the sowing sequence is also on the opponent's side and contains two or three seeds, its contents are captured as well. This backward collection continues uninterrupted along the opponent's row until reaching a hole that does not contain two or three seeds, or until crossing back into the mover's own row.
End of Game and Winning
- When the last remaining seeds cycle continuously around the board without further captures, the game ends.
- The seeds left on the board are split by ownership: each player collects the seeds resting in the holes on their own side.
- The player who has captured the greater number of seeds wins the game. If each player captures 24 seeds, the game ends in a draw.
Notes
- The survival of Adji Kui in Matanzas offers a striking window into the social life of Cuba's Arará cabildos (mutual aid societies and religious brotherhoods). While Afro-Cuban religious traditions such as Arará Dajomé drumming and sacred chants received academic recognition earlier, recreational pastimes like mancala were quietly cherished within private domestic settings.
- The companion game, Adji Kui II, introduces multi-lap relay sowing and casa captures of four counters, aligning it closely with Dominican Hoyito.
Source: Mancala World – Adji Kui I