06-21-2021, 09:38 AM
Hi Fabio,
Thanks for looking into this, it actually led to a curious bit of research!
Our rules for Bolotudu come from the book Jeux et jouets de l'ouest africain (Games and toys of the West African). The relevant information is the following:
C'est un wali, mais qui se joue avec 36 cases, 12 cailloux.... Les pions sont placés l'un après l'autre, sans que jamais deux pions soient placés côte à côte, l'on frappe et l'on mange quand deux pions sont alignés orthogonalement (fig. 324,). Les figures de jeu sont beaucoup moins riches que celles du wali classique.
("It's a wali [game], but it is played with 36 spaces, 12 pebbles...the pawns are placed one after the other, without ever placing two pawns side by side, one "hits" and eats when two pawns are orthogonally aligned. The features of the game are much less rich than classic wali")
Looking at the sources you sent, BoardGameGeek is horribly unreliable for historical and traditional games, because they rarely ever cite anything, so we can almost never use their information. The second source does have good citations, though, and that information can be traced back to a short account of the game in the very famous book Man, Play, and Games by Roger Caillois. He calls the game Bolotoudou, and the source he cites (which I've attached here) refers to Bolotoudou as a class of games, but specifically says that the version he is describing is one called Wali and played by the Songhai people in Mali. We find this a lot: games with similar names, names which really just mean board games generally, which are interchangeable. We will add this game as Wali in Ludii, but it will be seaarchable as Bolotoudou. It's also in French, but the relevant information is on p. 243-245.
Hope this clears things up!
Best,
Walter
Thanks for looking into this, it actually led to a curious bit of research!
Our rules for Bolotudu come from the book Jeux et jouets de l'ouest africain (Games and toys of the West African). The relevant information is the following:
C'est un wali, mais qui se joue avec 36 cases, 12 cailloux.... Les pions sont placés l'un après l'autre, sans que jamais deux pions soient placés côte à côte, l'on frappe et l'on mange quand deux pions sont alignés orthogonalement (fig. 324,). Les figures de jeu sont beaucoup moins riches que celles du wali classique.
("It's a wali [game], but it is played with 36 spaces, 12 pebbles...the pawns are placed one after the other, without ever placing two pawns side by side, one "hits" and eats when two pawns are orthogonally aligned. The features of the game are much less rich than classic wali")
Looking at the sources you sent, BoardGameGeek is horribly unreliable for historical and traditional games, because they rarely ever cite anything, so we can almost never use their information. The second source does have good citations, though, and that information can be traced back to a short account of the game in the very famous book Man, Play, and Games by Roger Caillois. He calls the game Bolotoudou, and the source he cites (which I've attached here) refers to Bolotoudou as a class of games, but specifically says that the version he is describing is one called Wali and played by the Songhai people in Mali. We find this a lot: games with similar names, names which really just mean board games generally, which are interchangeable. We will add this game as Wali in Ludii, but it will be seaarchable as Bolotoudou. It's also in French, but the relevant information is on p. 243-245.
Hope this clears things up!
Best,
Walter