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WHAT IS OWARE (OR AWALE)?

awaléby Jordi Climent
 

Awale (known as: oware or wari) is a very ancient board game that comes from Africa. It belongs to the big group of mancala games. In all these games the player must transfer pieces from one bin to another of the board during each turn. It is a fast and a dynamic game. The luck is not there implied. Only the practice allows to arrive at a domain high level. The rules of Oware game are simple and the game is really easy-to-learn. The origin of the game gets lost in the night of the times. The Maasai people say that Oware was invented by Sindillo, the son of the first man: Maitoumbe, and was originally calledgeshe.  

Oware with various names such as: Ayo, awoaley, Awale, wari, woli ... is played in West African countries as Senegal, Gambia, Cape Verde, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Mali, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon. Also found in the Caribbean and the Americas including: Suriname, Guyana, Grenada, Barbados, Sta. Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, Antigua and St. Kitts, Dominican Rep., Cuba, Brazil,... as a result of the slave trade that came from this part of Africa.