Urim
ゲーム種別: 2人用2列マンカーラ; 2×6盤面; リレー種蒔き（最後の石が空いていない穴に落ちると続行）; 最後の石が空いた穴に落ちると獲得する。
概要
Urim (also known across various Cape Verdean islands as Ouri, Huri, Ourim, Òrè, Ori, or Uril) is the traditional two-row mancala cultivated on the island of Brava in Cape Verde and preserved by Cape Verdean emigrant communities in Angola. Sharing historical kinship with Portuguese Ouri and the Orôà tradition of Guinea-Bissau, Urim represents a distinctive insular evolution of the West African Oware complex. First described in ethnographic detail by Cape Verdean scholar Elísio Romariz Santos Silva in 1994, the game is traditionally contested by adult men seated across carved wooden benches termed banco de ouri, using polished nickernuts (Caesalpinia crista).
While basic sowing mechanics mirror classical Oware, Urim introduces captivating tactical deviations: an expanded capture-chaining rule that sweeps up quadruplets in addition to pairs and triplets, an explicit tactical limit capping hole capacity at 17個, and a tiered match-point scoring system based on the proportion of counters captured.
盤面
- 段/列: 2
- 1列の穴の数: 6 or 7 holes per row depending on local board carving
- 貯蔵庫: End hollows to store captured 石; each player owns the store on their right
- 開始時の1穴あたりの石: 3 (yielding 36個 on a 2×6 board, or 42 石 on a 2×7 board)
- Pit limit: A single pit may not contain more than 17個 at any time.
遊び方
- Play proceeds counter-clockwise around the board in single laps. Players alternate turns.
- On a turn, a player scoops all 石 from one of their own pits and distributes them one by one into subsequent pits counter-clockwise.
- Feeding obligation: A player must feed an opponent who is entirely out of 石, if an available move can drop 石 into the opponent's row.
- Sowing skips the emptied origin pit if a full circuit of 12 (or 14) 石 is completed.
獲得
- Trigger: A capture is initiated only when the final seed (urin) lands in an opponent's pit, bringing its seed count to exactly two or three.
- Expanded chain: Once triggered, preceding contiguous opponent pits are captured as well if they hold two, three, or four 石!
- If the final seed itself lands in a pit and makes four, no capture is triggered (the initial trigger is strictly two or three).
- Captured 石 are deposited into the player's end store.
終局と勝利
- The game concludes when a player cannot make a legal move (starvation) or when remaining 石 cycle endlessly without captures.
- Match points:
- A player scores 2 points for capturing at least three-quarters (3/4) of all 石 in play (27 or more 石 on a 36-seed board; 32 or more on a 42-seed board).
- A player scores 1 point for capturing more than half the 石 but less than three-quarters (19 to 26個 on a 36-seed board; 22 to 31 on a 42-seed board).
- Otherwise, no points are awarded or the match is drawn.
注記
- A beloved Cape Verdean Creole riddle evokes the game's anatomy: "Doze boc', quarenta e oit' dente" ("Twelve mouths, forty-eight teeth — ouri"), reflecting ancestral 4-seed sets alongside Brava's 3-seed competition practice.
- The term urin refers both to the pivotal final seed dropped from the hand and to the dramatic scoring strike it delivers.
Source: Mancala World – Urim