Isolo (also known as Isumbi) 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 ...

game played by the Sukuma people in northern

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 ...

. The rules of the game come in three variants, respectively for women, boys and men.

Equipment

The board used to play Isolo (also known as ''isolo'') comprised 4 rows of 8 pits each, and 64 seeds (usually ''

Caesalpinia bonduc ''Guilandina bonduc'', commonly known as grey nicker, nicker bean,East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the historical ...

n mancalas such as Bao and

Omweso Omweso (sometimes shortened to Mweso) is the traditional mancala game of the Ugandan people. The game was supposedly introduced by the Bachwezi people of the ancient Bunyoro-kitara empire of Uganda. Nowadays the game is dominated by Ugandan villag ...

. Also as in Bao and Omweso, each player controls half of the board (two rows). Some Isolo boards feature two larger pits that are not part of the game but might be used to keep the score.

Rules

Rules for women

At game setup, two seeds are placed in each pit. At her turn, the player takes the seeds from any of her pits holding two or more seeds, and sows them counterclockwise in her two rows. If the last seed falls in an empty pit, the turn is over. If the last seeds falls in a non empty pit of the inner row, and there are any seeds in the opponent's player's pits in the same column, those seeds are captured. The capturing player will then sow these captured seeds starting from the pit where the capturing seed was dropped. If the last seed is dropped in a non empty pit but a capture is not possible, then relay-sowing applies. The first player that cannot move (as her pits are empty or only hold one seed each) loses the game.

Rules for boys

The rules for boys are much like those for women. Game setup is different, and is as depicted in this table: 17 2 0 2 0 2 0 2 0 1 2 0 2 0 2 0 0 2 0 2 0 2 1 0 2 0 2 0 2 0 2 17 Another difference is that there is an "overture" phase whereby players will only use the pits from the 7 lefthand columns (i.e., they will not be able to sow from or through their rightmost pits), just as if the board was 2x7 instead of 2x8. Also, seeds from the rightmost column of each player cannot be captured. The overture phase ends when the player chooses to sow from his ''ng'hana'' (the pit holding 17 seeds). Note that each player may decide when to end his overture independent of his opponent.

Other Instances of the Name "ISOLO"

The name Isolo is also the name of a very vibrant locality in Lagos Nigeria. It is governed under the Isolo/Oshodi Local Government District Area. It also has a local monarch known as Oba (King) of Isolo

References