Dr. Schweinfurth regards the Mohammedan Nubians as having received Mancala from their original home in Central Africa, and says that the recurrence of an object even trivial as this is an evidence, in a degree indirect and collateral, of the essential unity that underlies all African nations. Mr. Bent justly says that the game is found in some form or another wherever Arabian influence is felt, but, continuing, states that it forms for us another link in the chain of evidence connecting the Mashonaland ruins with an Arabian influence. Dr. Richard Andree, in his well-known work on Ethnological Parallels,[5] in which he has brought together many accounts of the game, says that he regards its progress from west to east, from Asia to the coast of the Atlantic. This opinion I share. Peterman relates that Mancala is played in Damascus with pebbles which pilgrims collect in a certain valley on their way from Mecca. From the comparatively early mention of the game in Arabic literature, and the retention of its Arabic name in Africa, Arabia would appear to be the source from which it was disseminated. Mohammed proscribed the Meiser game; and games of hazard, although played, are regarded by Mohammedans as prohibited by their religion. Mancala, a game of fate or calculation, appears to be looked upon with toleration, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that its wide diffusion is due to its having been carried by returning pilgrims to the various parts of the Mohammedan world. If we accept this theory of its distribution, we have yet the more difficult question of its origin. This, I fear, is not to be determined directly, and will only be surely known when we attain a greater knowledge of the rules or laws which underlie the development of games, even as they do every other phase of the development of human culture.
[5] “Ethnographische Parallen,” neue folge, Leipzig, 1889, p. 101.
Plate 5.
Board For Wa-we (Mancala).
Island of St. Lucia.
Collected by Rev. F. Gardiner, Cat. No. 151286, U. S. N. M.
I have recently been informed that Mancala is a common amusement of the negroes of San Domingo, who play upon boards scooped with holes. A board in the U. S. National Museum ([pl. 5]) was collected by the Rev. F. Gardiner, jr., in St. Lucia, where the game is played by the negroes under the name of Wa-wee.[6]
[6] Mr. Gardiner writes in a letter to Dr. G. Brown Goode under date of May 2, 1895: “The game of Wa-wee was bought in St. Lucia, but I found it in use also in Barbados and Martinique among the negroes. As far as I could ascertain, they supposed it very old—came from their fathers. I supposed it came from Africa; but no one seemed to know anything about it. It is a regular gambling game.” In regard to the method of play, he says: “As near as I can remember, each of the small side holes has a given number of beans put in, each man taking one side and one large hole as a goal. The beans are taken up from one hole in the hand and dropped in a certain order in the other holes, going round the whole circle. If the last one drops in a hole which has a certain number of beans in it (I don’t remember the number), he picks that lot up and goes on. The object is to land the most beans of your own and taken from your adversary in the end holes.”
It is not unlikely that Mancala may some day take its place among our own fireside amusements, when this account may answer some inquiries that may be made as to its history.
Since the above was written I have learned that the game of Mancala was published in the United States in 1891, under the name of Chuba, by the Milton Bradley Company, of Springfield, Mass., who furnish the following rules and account of the game:
Chuba is an adaptation from a rude game of eastern Africa which is greatly enjoyed by the natives, who squat on the ground and play in holes scooped out of the sand, using shells, young cocoanuts, etc., for counters, which they move from hole to hole. As now presented to the civilized world for its diversion, Chuba is a game of skill for two players. It is made up of a board with 4 parallel rows of holes or pockets, 11 in each row, and 60 small beads used as men or counters. [See [fig. 14].].