# Africa's sowing games and morris boards

> The count-and-capture mancala family across Africa, with a note on nine men's morris and its South African relative, and how to print them with Paperoom.

## Count, sow and capture

Mancala is a family of count-and-capture games, sometimes called sowing games. Players move seeds or stones around rows of pits, and a move can end with a capture. The family is played across Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia and the Caribbean.

Across Africa you may hear it called Oware in Ghana, Ayo in Nigeria, Awalé in Côte d'Ivoire and Bao in parts of East Africa. Each version has its own rules, so agree on yours before the first move. Kalah is a simpler variant from the twentieth century. You can try one on a printed board with [mancala](https://paperoom.yunusemrevurgun.com/mancala/).

## Morris boards and their relatives

Nine men's morris is an old strategy game on a board of lines and points. Players aim to form a "mill", a row of three of their own pieces, and remove an opponent's piece when they make one. It was played in Roman times and in medieval Europe, and Shakespeare mentions it in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Twelve men's morris adds diagonals, and Morabaraba is a related game from South Africa. You can print a [nine men's morris](https://paperoom.yunusemrevurgun.com/nine-mens-morris/) sheet and compare the variants with your group.

## Playing across the continent

Africa is large and varied, and no single game represents it. Ask the people at your table which rules they know, and write the agreed version on the sheet before you start.

## Printing and playing with Paperoom

Paperoom is free, works in your browser and needs no account. Choose A4 or US Letter to match your printer, print at 100% scale with headers and footers off, and print one test sheet to check the size of the pits or points. The interface is available in six languages, and you can save the setup file to print the same board again.

## Games from this region

- [Mancala (Oware, Kalah, Congkak)](https://paperoom.yunusemrevurgun.com/mancala/): Two rows of pits and a handful of seeds. Print oware, kalah or congkak boards, with optional seed tokens to cut out.
- [Nine men's morris](https://paperoom.yunusemrevurgun.com/nine-mens-morris/): Choose a morris variant, print one or two boards per page, and cut out counters for two players.
- [Alquerque](https://paperoom.yunusemrevurgun.com/alquerque/): A two-player game of moving and jumping on a five-by-five board, with a starting-position diagram and 24 counters to cut out.
- [Checkers, draughts and chess boards](https://paperoom.yunusemrevurgun.com/checkers/): Hatched dark squares for checkers, international draughts or chess, with coordinates and pieces to cut out.

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