Mancala is often called a game, in truth it is, “a generic name for a family of ‘sowing’

games that are popular all over the world, particularly in Africa and parts of Asia.”1 Where the

genre originated is shrouded in mystery, as it can be found from the Baltics to moorish Spain,

and from southern India to Rwanda. The genre could be as old as civilization itself, incorporating

many aspects of early agriculture and mathematics into its core mechanics. However, the most

popular of the Mancala games, introduced in 1940’s North America as Kahla, can trace its roots

to eastern Africa, most likely Ethiopia or Eritrea, in the form of Oware. Oware is a game that as

one can imagine from the count-and-capture genre, a game where you count beads into various

divots on a board and capture them into your main cup. While easy to pick up it is nigh

impossible to master to the point that one of the most common games associated with it outside

its genre is chess. There are several easy comparisons, they were created about a century apart,

they both involve strategy and planning multiple turns ahead, and they are both pretty much the

only games played widely to this day from the 6th-7th century range, unless you count Go, but

that its invention is a contentious point for many board game historians. But the similarities go

outside the game itself, for just as chess revolutionized the culture of India, so too did Oware

shape cultures across Africa.

To say that Oware changed how Africa looked at leisure would undersell its global

impact. The core mechanics resonated with the agriculturally minded people of East Africa, but

swiftly (on a historical scale) moved across migratory and trade routes throughout Africa,

capturing the attention of people everywhere it went. Today, it is even the national mancala

game of Ghanna. The era of colonization by european powers in Africa connected Oware to even

more communities, though it didn’t catch on in Europe itself as they considered it inferior to

1. Brant, Taalman, and Tongen. The American Mathematical Monthly. 706. Taylor &
Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Mathematical Association of America
backgammon. However, while the genre would never catch on outside of Eastern Europe

(Bosnian ban-ban, baltic bohnenspiel, and Mandoli in Greece) it would find a wide audience in

America as Kahla. It’s inventor, William Julius Champion Jr. was, to say the least, eclectic in his

business ventures. He helped Lee DeForest invent the vacuum tube, he invested in a gold mine as

well as the Champion lead mine, which I am led to believe, operates to this day as Champion

Mineral inc. now focusing on iron mining, and he invented the most popular Mancala variant in

america. The legend goes that he started working on it after reading about the ancient mancala

games of Africa in the 1910’s, finishing designing it in the 1940’s, which as far as legends go is

very believable. Khala is the game that I am most familiar with, having a copy sitting in my

closet. I believe the adages comparing it to chess are quite apt, the level of complex strategy that

can come out of a game that, as Champion sold it, was a children's education game about

learning to count. Oware, and Mancala as a whole are games played to this day, about 1,300

years since its inception, and as can be expected has left a huge impression on the cultures that

embraced it. One could argue, if you follow Champion’s logic, that Mancala was one of, if not

the first educational board games, later coined as edu-tainment by the video game industry. From

Africa to America, the game has been played throughout the ages, and will continue to, most

likely, forever. It has seen a recent revival in the form of video games, it was recently included in

the Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics for the Nintendo Switch, where it has been quite

popular on the internet and has introduced a new generation to the game.