Adjiboto is a two-row mancala-style board game that was observed in the early twentieth century in Beidotti village, Suriname, where Saamaka people lived. The board was kept in an open structure which served as the meeting place for the village council, house of mourning, and to accommodate travelers.
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.
