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Evidence for Leyla
1 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.1250
Type Ethnography
Location 9°21'24.42"N, 42°47'43.87"E
Date 1971-01-01 - 1971-12-31
Rules 2x6 board. Four counters in each hole. Sowing occurs in a clockwise direction. When the final counter of a sowing lands in an occupied hole, the contents of the hole are picked up and sowing continues. If this occupied hole is in the opponent's row and is made to contain four with the final counter, this hole and the one opposite it are captured, the counters remaining in the holes. Players may not sow from these holes. If on a subsequent turn the final counter of a sowing falls into an opponent's captured hole, one counter from the hole is captured, as well as the final counter of the sowing, and the turn ends. When the final counter of a sowing lands in an empty hole, the turn ends. Play continues until one of the players can no longer move, the opponent taking any remaining counters in free holes on their side of the board and each player taking the counters in their captured holes. A new round begins. Players attempt to fill their holes with four counters each. If a player has two extra counters, they may loan them to the other player, to be repaid when they can in a subsequent round. If a player has one extra counter, it is surrendered to the opponent. The player with more counter would only fill as many hole as the opponent is able to fill, retaining their extra counters for future rounds. Play continues until one player cannot fill any holes.
Content "Leyla or Wegi This game , known as leya or wegi, the latter presumably a corruption of the Amharic weg, has similarities with Game 37, but has significant differences from the game as described by Marin, and was played by Ba'alul Mohamed, a Radio Ethiopia announcer from the Habr Awal tribe from the Jigjiga area, and also by Hasan Omar Gad, another Habr Awal from around Jigjiga introduced by Yusuf Omar Abdi. The former described the game as played in a clockwise direction on two rows of six holes...Both authorities agree, however, that there are four balls per hole. The first player would begin by picking up all the balls from any of his holes and would drop them singly in ensuing holes, picking up the contents of the hole in which his last ball fell, and proceeding in this manner until he reached an empty hole when he would stop, it being then the second player's turn to move. A player dropping the last ball in his hand into one of his opponent's holes containing three balls would effect a capture, not only of that hole but of his own opposite hole, both holes being referred to as wegi. The player to indicate the status of these holes would probably make a mark next to them in the sand, and would equalise their contents by transferring balls from one hole to the other, and, according to Ba'alul, would continue to do this as needed from time to time during the play. Neither player was entitled to pick up balls from wegi as from other holes, though a player dropping the last ball in his hand into either of his opponent's pair of wegi captured one counter and put it aside, together with the ball effecting the capture, as his winnings. Such a capture would conclude his move, the player not being entitled, to continue it as in Central Ethiopia, for example. The round would come to an end when one of the players could no longer move, at which time his opponent would appropriate the balls remaining on his own side as his takings. At the end of the round the players would count down the balls they had captured. Ba'alul says they would do this by refilling their holes, the more successful player filling only as many as his opponent could fill, and holding over his surplus for a future round if needed, the remaining holes being covered in with sand. A player, generally the one with the larger number of counters, who had two balls beyond those necessary to fuill his hole or holes would lend them to his opponent, such a loan to be repaid in a later round. A player with one extra ball would however, surrender it to his opponent with three.
Confidence 100
Ages Adult
Genders Male
Source Pankhurst, R. 1971. Gabata and Related Board Games of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia Observer 14(3):154-206.
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