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Evidence in Merina
1 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.1235
Type Ethnography
Game Katra Boaoaka
Date 1926-01-01 - 1927-09-01
Rules 4x8 board. Two counters in each hole. Each player may sow in either direction on their first move, but must continue in the same direction for the remainder of the game. When the final counter of a sowing lands in an occupied hole, the counters in that hole are picked up and sowing continues. If the final hole of a sowing is in the inner row, regardless of whether it is occupied or empty, the player then captures the counters in both of the opponent's holes opposite it, and continues sowing with these counters as well as the ones in the final hole of sowing. Captures cannot be made when the final hole of a sowing was empty, and the opponent's opposite holes have only a single counter. When the final counter lands in an empty hole, the turn is over. The player who captures all the counters wins.
Content "One of these, katra, is known all over Madagascar, although the rules probably vary somewhat from tribe to tribe...Katra is played mainly by women and older children...Katra is played on a diagram...which are arranged in four parallel rows. Many tribes employ regular gaming boards with pits at the positions and a larger pit at one end for spare pieces, but the Tanala content themselves with marking the positions on the ground. The pieces used are everywhere large, round gray seeds about the size of marbles. These seeds do not grow in the plateau and the tribes there import them from the east coast. The Tanala normally employ thirty-two pits, arranged in four rows of eight each...Before beginning the game two seeds are placed at each pit...The first player selects a position at random, usually one in the back row, takes out the seeds and drops them one at a. time into the other pits along the row. He may start out either right or left, but this initial move determines the direction he must follow throughout the game....[describes sowing and captures]...the game is sometimes shortened by agreeing that the player shall capture the seeds in the antagonists' from t and back rows simultaneously...The Imerina call this Katra Boaoaka, but tht Tanala seem to have no name for this variation." Linton 1933: 261-264.
Confidence 100
Ages Child, Adult
Genders Female
Source Linton, R. 1933. The Tanala: A hill Tribe of Madagascar. Chicago: Field Museum.
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