Adji Kui II
Game type: Two-row Afro-Cuban mancala (Matanzas, Cuba) — multi-lap relay sowing from pits with at least two seeds, final-counter casa captures of four seeds in the opponent's row, and hole-buying match play.
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Overview
Adji Kui II is the multi-lap relay counterpart within the Afro-Cuban mancala tradition of Matanzas, Cuba, first documented in 1991 by researcher Ruth Magalys Wilson Ferrer. Preserved exclusively among a select number of families of Arará origin, the game shares the West African roots of Adji Kui I, tracing directly back to Fon, Ewe, Popo, and Mina communities from coastal Benin and Togo. While Adji Kui I adheres to single-lap Oware-style conventions, Adji Kui II belongs to the Caribbean casa tradition, displaying close morphological kinship with Dominican Hoyito and West African prototypes such as Ghanaian Ba-awa.
In Adji Kui II, sowing unfolds through dynamic multi-lap relays: when the last counter of a lap lands in an occupied hole, its full contents are scooped up to launch another lap around the board. Tactical skill focuses on timing laps so that the final seed drops into an opponent's hole to form a group of exactly four (casa), which is captured on the spot and concludes the move. Beyond single-game play, traditional matches link games into an ongoing campaign where winners use surplus captured stones to "buy" holes on the opponent's side of the board.
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 one row of six holes.
How to Play
- Players alternate turns, sowing counters counter-clockwise around the board.
- On their turn, a player lifts all seeds from any hole on their side that holds at least two seeds. Singletons cannot be sown.
- The player distributes them one by one into the following holes counter-clockwise.
- Relay sowing: If the final seed of a lap falls into an occupied hole (and does not trigger a capture), the player lifts all counters in that hole and continues sowing in another lap starting from the next hole.
- A turn concludes when the last seed drops into an empty hole, or when a capture is made.
- If a player has only empty holes on their turn, they pass their turn.
Capturing
- If the final seed of a sowing lap lands in an opponent's hole that then contains exactly four seeds, those four seeds are captured by the moving player, and the move immediately ends.
- If the final seed makes four in a hole on the player's own side, the counters are not captured; the move simply ends.
- Groups of four created mid-lap (en passant) are not captured and remain on the board.
End of Game and Winning
- The game concludes when only eight seeds remain in play across the entire board.
- Each player takes all seeds remaining in the holes on their own side of the board.
- The player with the highest total of captured seeds wins the game.
Notes
- Match play and hole buying: Matches consist of multiple consecutive games. Following the conclusion of a game, players reconstruct the board using their accumulated captured seeds, placing four seeds in each hole on their own side. A player who has captured more than 24 seeds will have a surplus after filling all six of their holes; they use this surplus to "buy" holes on the opponent's side by depositing four seeds into each purchased hole. In the next game, the buyer owns those purchased holes and has the privilege of starting moves from them, although the opponent may still capture four-seed groups formed within them.
- Adji Kui II illustrates the remarkable geographic and cultural migration of mancala mechanics across the Caribbean, mirroring how enslaved West Africans preserved and adapted relay-and-casa gameplay across both Cuba and Hispaniola.
Source: Mancala World – Adji Kui II