Mancala

Mancala is the name often used for a large and distinctive family of related games. Also known as bean games or sowing games, what makes them distinctive is that the pieces while in play do not belong to either of the players. Those pieces, often seeds or similar, are picked up and "sown" around a board consisting of two or more rows of 'holes', and this "sowing" allows subsequent capture of 'seeds'. The game is purely strategic; dice or chance play no role, and the player capturing most 'seeds' is the winner. Across its distribution range, there is a lot of variation in board size, number of rows, and details regarding "sowing" and capturing.

The centre of gravity of the mancala family is situated in Africa, but games of this family are also known from across the middle East and even as far east as China. Finds of what looks very much like mancala boards are known from ancient Egypt and it has been suggested that the family as a whole may date back to around 3000 BC.

My (rubber wood) mancala board was obtained many years ago via WWF.

I misplaced the pieces it originally came with, but replaced them recently with wooden beads, in a variety of colour patterns.

This actually works really well (and better than the original simple wooden pieces), as they really resemble seeds!