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Evidence for Gabata (Oromo)
1 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.1214
Type Ethnography
Location 8°58'34.27"N, 38°45'29.98"E
Date 1971-01-01 - 1971-12-31
Rules 2x6 board. Four counters in each hole. Play begins with a stylised move. One player takes the four counters in their leftmost hole and places them into the next hole, moving in an anti-clockwise direction. They then take the four counters in the next hole, and place them in the following holes. This continues until the entire board has an alternation pattern of a hole with eight counters followed by one with zero counters. The player then sows beginning from the final hole with eight counters they created. When the final counter of a sowing lands in a hole with counters, the player picks up these counters and sowing continues. When the final counter falls into an empty hole, the turn ends. At any time during the sowing a hole is made to contain four counters, they are captured by the player who is sowing, except when it is the final hole of a sowing, in which case they are picked up and sowing continues. If a player cannot play, they must pass their turn and may resume play when they are next able. When all of the counters have been captured, the player who captured the most counters wins.
Content "Gabata IX This game, based on two rows of six holes with four balls per hole, has similarities with games 23 to 26, but has a distinctive opening gambit and a somewhat different mode of capture. The game was reported by Isaac Gabra Maryam, a student of the Addis Ababa Commercial School, who say it played by a [n Oromo] woman of the Bolé area of Addis Ababa. The first player begins on his extreme left by picking up the four balls in that hole which, always moving in an anti-clockwise direction, he places in the following hole. He then moves the contents of the next hole to the one following it, and proceeds in this way round the board, thereby arranging the balls in a 0, 8, 0, 8 pattern, but, dropping the last group of four balls (on his opponent's right hole) he picks up all eight balls and distributes them one by one, picking up the contents of the hole in which he drops his last ball and then sowing these balls one by one as in the games above referred to. Captures are effected by a player whenever a group of four balls forms in any of his holes, but on dropping the last ball in his hand he does not make any capture, as in some lam waladach games, but has merely to continue distributing the balls." Pankhurst 1971: 178.
Confidence 100
Ages Adult
Genders Female
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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