African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

African Americans 35
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CECELIA CONWAY
See also Diaspora; Musical Instruments: Focus on Namibia; Music in Africa:
Overview
BAO
Bao, which means “board” in Swahili, is an East African board game. This game is a
variation of Mancala, a group of board games particularly popular in Africa, but are also
played in Asia and the Americas. It is played by two players who commonly use a
wooden board with four rows of eight holes and sixty-four counters. The rules are the
most complex of all Mancala variations. They allow counters to be distributed in both
clockwise and counter-clockwise directions and the direction may change during a move.
Two enlarged or square holes in the center of the board allow counters to accumulate
during the game to facilitate multiple captures. Contrary to most Mancala variations, the
counters are not all on the board at the start of play. Forty-four of them enter the game
one by one with each turn and when all are entered they will remain on the board.
Captured counters are not taken from the board but are distributed in the rows of the
player who captured them. This arrangement also allows for multiple captures. The
captures in Bao create the highest turnover of counters between two players in a game
compared to those in any other Mancala variation or board game. Capturing is obligatory
and Bao rules dictate the outcome of a move once it has started. The possible length or
complexity of a move may require complex mental calculations. This has provided Bao
with the status of most difficult Mancala variation and made it an object of psychological
investigation.
Bao is played in East Africa and its presence follows the Swahili trade routes and the
spread of Islam in that region. Players can be found mostly in Kenya and Tanzania but
also in, for instance, Malawi, Mozambique, Madagascar, Somalia and Zambia. The oldest
boards in museum collections with the characteristic enlarged holes in the center of the
board were acquired in the 1890s. The first description of Bao was given by Flacourt in
1658 and concerned players in Madagascar. His description does not mention the two
enlarged holes in the center of the board but otherwise clearly refers to Bao as it is known
today. Detailed rules of Bao (which have taken two to fifteen pages to describe in the Bao
literature!), have not appeared in print until the second half of the twentieth century.
Today the rules found in Kenya, Tanzania and, for instance, Madagascar are practically
identical. The distribution of Bao rules and the strong similarities that still exist suggests