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Evidence for Dabuda
1 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.716
Type Ethnography
Location Afar
Date 1971-01-01 - 1971-12-31
Rules 2x10 board.
Four counters in each hole.
Play begins from one of the rightmost four in the player's row, sowing in an anti-clockwise direction. When the final counter lands in an occupied hole, these counters are picked up and sowing continues. Captures are made if the player's final counter lands in an empty hole in their row; the contents of the opponent's hole opposite and the final counter are both captured. If the hole opposite is empty, nothing happens. If the empty hole is in the opponent's row, the turn ends.
After each player performs this move, they may sow from any hole in their row, provided the sowing leads into the opponent's row or finishes in an empty hole in the player's own row.
Play continues until one player cannot play because their holes are empty. When this happens, the opponent captures the remaining counters. Each player counts their captured counters, four by four, into their holes. The player who has the most counters wins.
Content " Dabuda I
This game (Game 33), the best known among the Afar, is based on two rows, each normally consisting of 10 holes, with four balls per hols, and was played by Haji Ali Muhamad Salah of the Damohoita tribe, a trader resident in Asaita, Ahmad Al-Jowari, a Radio Ethiopia entertainer from Jibuti and Mahmouda Ahmed Gassa, a Haile Selassie I University student from Thio.
The first player would begin, as Haji Mohamad says, by lifting up the balls from his extreme right hole, or, as Ahmad Al-Johari says, at least from one of the four right-hand holes, and would then distribute these balls, in an anti-clockwise direction, by dropping them one by one into the following holes. On dropping his last ball into a hole he would lift up the entire contents of that hole, and would proceed in this manner until he reached an empty hole. If that happened on one of his own holes, with one or more balls in his opponent's opposite hole, the player would take his last ball or counter, together with the opposite ball or balls as his winnings, but if his opponent's opposite hole were empty the player was entitled to take nothing, and this was the case also if he alighted in one of his opponent's empty holes. It would then be the second player's turn to move.
The players, who were allowed to count the contents of their hole so as to calculate their moves, could now start from any of their holes provided the last ball in their hand fell on one of their own empty holes or led on to the enemy row, in which latter case it was permissible for a ball going round the board finally to alight on the player's own side...
Captures would always be effected by alighting in an empty hole belonging to the player and facing an occupied enemy hole.
Play would continue until one of the players was unable to move because his holes were all empty. His opponent would at this point appropriate the remaining balls )which were of course now only in the latter's row) and would place them with his previous winnings.
The two players would then count out their takings, four by four, into their holes, the player with the largest number of balls being the victor. Ahmad Al-Johari states that a player capturing enough balls to fill three or more of his opponent's holes would be considered to have gained a particularly notable triumph, and would say, farasal kokaysé, literally "I beat you by a horse." Pankhurst 1971: 180.
Confidence 100
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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