Dakon

Game type: Two-player two-row mancala with two end stores, seven holes per row, seven seeds per hole — multi-lap relay sowing; own-store endings award bonus turns; dual capture rules: shooting opposite holes (nembak) on own empty finishes, and shoulder-pole captures (mikul) of equal neighbors on opponent empty finishes

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Overview

Dakon (also spelled Dhakon or Permainan Dakon) is the traditional Javanese mancala of Indonesia, belonging to the widespread Austronesian Congkak family. First described in Western literature by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles in his monumental 1817 work The History of Java, who noted its popularity among local women, Dakon remains a cherished game throughout Java, celebrated for developing numerical dexterity and swift mental calculation. Beyond its recreational tradition, Dakon holds a prominent status in game-theoretic literature: mathematical analysis has demonstrated that under perfect play on standard boards, the first player can compute a forced win from the opening move. The counters used are traditionally the smooth, dark brown seeds of the sapodilla fruit (biji sawo), reflecting the game's rural agricultural roots.

Board

• Ranks/rows: Two
• Holes per row: 5 to 9 holes, with 7 playing holes (sawah, "rice fields") per row standing as the universal standard (14 playing pits total)
• Stores: Two large storage hollows called lumbung ("rice barns"), one at either end
• Counters: 7 seeds per hole on a standard board (98 seeds total), usually sapodilla seeds (biji sawo) or small shells
• Initial layout:

       [ Store: Player 1 ]
   [ 0 ] [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ]   <- Player 1
   [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [10 ] [11 ] [12 ] [13 ]  <- Player 0
       [ Store: Player 0 ]

How to Play

• *Determining first player (Pingsut): Play begins alternately, with the first mover traditionally decided by pingsut* (the Javanese finger game where the thumb/elephant defeats the index/human, the human defeats the little finger/ant, and the ant defeats the elephant by crawling into its ear).
• Sowing proceeds one by one into consecutive pits and into the player's own store (lumbung), bypassing the opponent's store.
• Multi-lap relay: If the final seed drops into an occupied playing hole, all seeds in that hole are lifted immediately and distributed in another lap.
• Bonus turn on store finish: If the final seed falls directly into the player's own store, the player earns an immediate extra move from any occupied hole on their side.
• Turn end: If the final seed falls into an empty hole, the lap ends and the turn concludes.

Capturing

Dakon features two distinct, highly strategic capture mechanisms: 1. *Shooting the opposite hole (Nembak or Gendong):*

• If the last seed of a lap falls into an empty hole on the player's own side, all seeds in the opponent's hole directly across the board are captured into the player's store.
  • The single seed that landed in the empty hole remains in place.
  • If the opposite hole is empty, no seeds are captured.

2. *Balanced shoulder-pole capture (Mikul):*

• If the last seed of a lap drops into an empty hole on the opponent's side of the board, the player inspects the two immediate same-row neighbors of that landing hole (left and right).
  • If both neighboring holes contain an equal, non-zero number of seeds, the contents of both neighbors AND the effecting seed are captured into the player's store.
  • If the neighbors hold unequal numbers of seeds, or if the landing occurs on a corner/edge column with only one neighbor, no capture occurs.

End of Game and Winning

• The game terminates when a player whose turn it is has no seeds in any of their playing holes (an empty side).
• All remaining seeds on the board are swept by the opponent into the opponent's store.
• Each player counts the total counters stored in their lumbung.
• The player who has captured the greater number of seeds wins the game.

Notes

• Archaeological homonym: In Java, prehistoric cupmarked megaliths dating to the Bronze-Iron Age are colloquially known as batu dakon ("dakon stones") due to rows of hemispherical indentations resembling the game board. However, archaeological research indicates these ancient petroglyphs were utilized for ancestral veneration and astronomical observation rather than game play.
• Agricultural terminology: The Javanese vocabulary reflects the rice cultivation culture of Java—individual pits are termed sawah (irrigated rice paddies), stores are lumbung (communal rice granaries), and the capture types evoke carrying harvests by shoulder pole (mikul) or sling (gendong).

Source: Mancala World – Dakon

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