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Evidence in Saramacca
1 pieces of evidence found.
Id DLP.Evidence.660
Type Ethnography
Game Adjiboto
Date 1929-01-01 - 1929-12-31
Rules 2x5 board.
Ten counters in each hole
Sowing occurs in an anti-clockwise direction, sowing first into the hole from which the counters originally came.
Opening phase: In the first ten turns, each player must sow from each of their five holes.
Main phase: Captures are made when the last counter of a sowing falls into a hole preceding a hole containing one, three, or five counters. These counters are taken. Any subsequent holes also containing one, three, or five counters are captured, until a hole is reached that does not have one of these numbers of counters. The exception to this is in the first move when no captures are made. Sowing cannot begin from a hole with a single counter.
A player wins when his opponent can no longer sow. However, if a player can no longer move, they can redistribute their captured beans into their holes, and if all five can be filled with ten, the game is a draw.
Content "The game is played by two players, each of whom uses five of the ten playing- holes, and an extra hole for captured pieces called his boto, to his right. Each player has fifty beans, which he places ten to each of his five playing-holes. The play commences when the first player, selecting any hole on his side of the board, takes out nine of the beans, leaving one in the hole from which he played, and dis- tributes them, one to a playing-hole, moving around the board in a counter-clockwise direction until the beans in his hand are exhausted. His opponent then selects a hole on his side (in which there will now be eleven beans) and does the same. In the first ten moves of the game, all of the ten playing-holes must be emptied, and it is only after these more or less formal moves, which get the game under way, have been played that the essential tactics can show themselves.
The object of the game is to reduce one's opponent to a position where it is impossible for him to move. To this end, beans are captured in the following manner: if, after distributing the beans which have been in a given hole the final bean falls into a hole (the native term being kaba, " to end ") which precedes another hole containing 1, 3, or 5 beans, or any sequential combination of ones, threes or fives, he captures these beans and places them in his bot-the hole at his right hand. The only exception to this rule is the opening move of the game, since the final bean must fall in the hole preceding the one where play was started. This bean cannot be captured. It makes no difference whether the captured beans be in holes on the player's side of the board, or on his opponent's, he must take if. he ends before a hole having 1, 3, or 5 beans.
When beans are distributed from a hole, one must be left, nor may a hole containing only one bean be played. Empty holes can only result from a capture.Therefore, when the play has reduced the number of beans, and the holes of one's opponent contain no beans or only one apiece, he is unable to move in his turn, and the game is lost. There is a way, however, in which the game may be tied: after .one player can no longer move, he redistributes the beans in his boto, that is, the ones he has captured in the course of the game, into the holes on his side. If he can fill his holes, or, in other words, if he has captured fifty beans during the play, the game is a draw. This is signified by drawing the finger across the centre of the board, between the opposing holes." Herskovits 1929: 123-124.
Confidence 100
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