{{Short description, Traditional mancala played by the Yoruba people in Nigeria
Ayoayo (
Yoruba
The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...
: ''Ayò Ọlọ́pọ́n'') is a traditional
mancala
The mancala games are a family of two-player turn-based strategy board games played with small stones, beans, or seeds and rows of holes or pits in the earth, a board or other playing surface. The objective is usually to capture all or some ...
played by the
Yoruba
The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...
people in
Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
. It is very close to the
Oware
Oware is an abstract strategy game among the mancala family of board games (pit and pebble games) played worldwide with slight variations as to the layout of the game, number of players and strategy of play. Its origin is uncertain but it is wide ...
game that spread to the
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
with the
atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
. Among modern mancalas, which are most often derived from Warri, the
Kalah
Kalah is a modern variation in the ancient Mancala family of games, the oldest known version having been found carved into a stone tablet in the 16th-century BCE pyramid of Cheops. The Kalah variation was developed in the United States by Willia ...
is a notable one that has essentially the same rules as Ayoayo.
There are games with identical rules also in other areas of Africa. One such game is the Endodoi, played by the
Maasai people
The Maasai (; sw, Wamasai) are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting northern, central and southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are among the best-known local populations internationally due to their residence near the many game parks of t ...
of
Kenya
)
, national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
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, capital = Nairobi
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and
Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...
.
Rules
The Ayoayo board is composed of two rows of six holes each, and 48 seeds are used; at the beginning, 4 seeds are placed in each hole. These are exactly the same equipment and setup as those of
Warri
The city of Warri is an oil hub within South-South Nigeria and houses an annex of the Delta State Government House. Warri City is one of the major hubs of the petroleum industry in Nigeria. Warri and her twin city, Uvwie are the commercial c ...
and many other 2-row mancalas such as Layli Goobalay. Each player owns one of the rows.
Each turn the player takes all seeds from one of the holes and relay sows them counterclockwise. During each individual sowing, the starting hole is skipped (i.e., no seeds are dropped there even if more than 12 seeds are to be sown). When the last seed is sown in an empty hole, the player captures any seen in the opposing hole if this hole belongs to the player.
When one of the players cannot move anymore, the game is over. The opponent captures all the seeds that are left on the board and the winner is the player who captured most seeds.
If a turn ends with no seeds left in their row, the opponent ''must'' (if it is possible) choose their move in such a way to bring one or more seeds into the other's row. This scheme is found in many mancalas and sometimes referred to as "feeding" the opponent (i.e., save the opponent from starving).Ayoayo rules /ref>