Ba-awa
Game type: Two-player two-row mancala with storage pits; multi-lap relay sowing; casa-style captures of four seeds during sowing awarded to the pit owner, with final-stone fours claimed by the mover.
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Overview
Ba-awa is an accessible two-row mancala game cherished by the Twi, a major subgroup of the Akan people in southern and central Ghana. While sharing geographical roots with the intricate and globally renowned Oware, Ba-awa features a more straightforward, fast-paced ruleset that has historically made it a popular pastime among women and children. The game entered Western ludological literature through Robert Charles Bell in his 1969 compendium Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations, based on gameplay taught to him in 1957 by S. Afoakwa. Ba-awa belongs to a broader West African family of casa-style mancalas that includes Nigerian games such as Jerin and Obridjie.
Board
- Ranks/rows: Two
- Holes per row: 6
- Stores: Optional storage pit at each end to hold captured seeds
- Seeds per hole at start: 4
- Total seeds: 48
- The board has six pits in front of each player, and optionally one pit at each end which stores captured seeds. At the start of the first game, four seeds are placed in each playing pit, leaving the end store pits empty. In subsequent match games, each pit also begins with four seeds, though pit ownership may shift based on preceding results.
How to Play
- Players take turns moving seeds. On their turn, a player chooses one of the pits on their side containing seeds.
- The player removes all seeds from this pit and distributes them, one by one, counter-clockwise into consecutive playing pits in a process called sowing. Seeds are not distributed into the end store pits.
- Sowing proceeds via multi-lap relay: if the last seed falls in an occupied pit, all seeds in that pit (including the newly dropped seed) are gathered up and resown in a fresh lap starting from the next pit.
- These multiple laps continue until the sowing ends, either when the final seed lands in an empty pit, or when the final seed creates a capture of four seeds.
Capturing
- If a pit reaches exactly four seeds at any point during sowing, those four seeds are immediately captured and won by the player who owns that pit. Multiple captures may occur during a single move.
- Exception: If the last seed of a sowing lap is dropped into a pit and brings its count to exactly four seeds, those four seeds are captured by the moving player, regardless of which side of the board the pit is on. Sowing then ends.
End of Game and Winning
- When only eight seeds remain on the board, the player who made the opening move of the game takes all eight seeds and the game ends.
- In match play, each player begins the subsequent game with one pit for each four seeds captured. The nominal objective of a match is to claim all twelve pits on the board; however, because complete conquest is very difficult, matches are usually played until one player controls ten or eleven pits.
Notes
- Ba-awa can also be played by three participants, each starting with control of four pits. When the first player is eliminated, the remaining two players battle for the remainder of the board.
- The game is also known in the region as Anenam or Nam-Nam.
Source: Mancala World – Ba-awa