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Evidence for Tapata
1 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.1425
Type Ethnography
Location 5°20'25.60"N, 37°26'19.65"E
Date 1971-01-01 - 1971-12-31
Rules 2x12 board. Beginning from the leftmost hole closest to a player and proceeding in an anti-clockwise direction, the opening arrangement of counters is an alternating pattern of one empty hole, followed by two holes with three counters each. The first move for each player must be from an occupied hole in the right half of their row. Players sow in an anti-clockwise direction, but if the final counter is about to fall in a hole in the player's own row, it is instead placed in the first hole in the opponent's row. After this, players may sow from any hole in their row, provided that the final counter does not fall into an occupied hole in their row. When the final counter of a sowing lands in an occupied hole in the opponent's row, the counters there are picked up and sowing continues. When this happens, the player is allowed to drop the final counter into an occupied hole in their row, which would then be picked up and sowing would continue as before. When the final counter falls into an empty hole in the player's row, any counters in the opponent's hole opposite are captured. When the final counter falls into an empty hole in the opponent's row, the turn ends. Play continues until one player's row is empty of counters, and the opponent wins. Players typically play to achieve five consecutive wins.
Content "Konso. The Konso people refer to their board-games as tagéga and play them largely in areas det aside for their assemblies. The game a recreation of adult males, and to a lesser extent boys and youth, is played, usually on wooden boards with seeds as balls in the open air or, during rains, in houses or just outside them in the shelter of the roof. The following games were played by Shaka Oto of Olanta near Baqaele...Tagega I: Tapata. This game, based on two rows each of 12 holes is called tapata, perhaps after the Konso people of that name. Three balls are initially placed in each of four pairs of holes on either side and are arranged as follows:...The game is unusual in having not one opening move, as in Game 36, but two basically symmetrical opening moves, one for each player. The first player was thus obliged to begin play from an occupied hole on the right half of his row, and would usually do so from one ot other of those nearest the centre of the board. Having picked up the contents of one such hole he would proceed in an anti-clockwise direction, but should the last ball in his hand be about to fall in one of his own holes he would jump over it so as to alight on his opponent's side. his move would then come to an end, and his opponent would effect a similar gambit from a hole on the right half of his row, again preferable from one of the two holes nearest the centre of the board, and would likewise avoid terminating his hand in one of his own occupied holes. Play would then proceed more or less on the lines of Game 44 from Hadiyra or Games 47 and 48 from Walamo (Yado)...Players were now free to start anywhere on their side of the board provided that the last ball in their hand did not fall on one of their own occupied holes, and jumping, as in the two opening gambits was no longer permissible...Captures, as in the Hadiya and Walamo games just referred to, were effected by a player dropping the last ball in his hand into one of his own empty holes opposite an occupied hole belonging to his opponent, in which case the former player appropriated the contents of the latter's hole, and it was his opponent's turn to play. The player left with counters in his row won the game. Though victory was thus obtained in a single round players would usually play repeatedly with a view to gaining five consecutive wins which would be spoken of as a pidèta or victory." Pankhurst 1971: 187.
Confidence 100
Ages Child, Adolescent, Adult
Spaces Inside, Outside, Public, Communal
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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