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Evidence for English Wari (St. Lucia)
1 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.707
Type Ethnography
Location St Lucia
Date 1932-01-01 - 1932-12-31
Rules 2x6 board with two stores.
Four counters in each row.
For the opening move, a player may take all of the counters in one hole and add them to the next hole.
Play continues with players sowing from any one of the holes in their row in an anti-clockwise direction. If a sowing reaches the hole from which the sowing began, this hole is skipped. If the final counter falls in a hole containing three counters, thus making it contain four counters, these are captured. An unbroken sequence of holes containing four counters moving backwards from the final hole are also captured. Single counters cannot be sown.
If a player cannot move, the opponent must sow in a way that allows them to play on the next turn. Play continues until one player has no counters on their side of the board. The player with the most captured counters wins.
Content "Another addition to the rules of this form of wari, one that is possibly a local variant, was disclosed while playing...at St Lucia. Here, in breaking the holes, all four seeds may be taken from one cup and put into the next, as, for instance, in Fig. 4, Y might take the four seeds in "e" and place them all in "f," this making no seeds in "e" and eight in "f." This can only be done in the opening move, and the object is to make what is called on all the islands a "house,"—i.e. a cup that has a large number of seeds in it. Tactically this is good if the number of seeds in such a cup be carefully counted, for having such a "house" often gives the player who possesses it an opportunity to go completely around the board and, continuing on the second round, to fill holes on his opponent's side that are either empty or that have only one seed each. This makes a series of two's and three's, the player thus capturing a large number of counters." Herskovits 1932: 31.
Confidence 100
Source Herskovits, M. J. 1932. 'Wari in the New World.' The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 62: 23–37.
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