En Gehé 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 som ...

game played by the Loitha and Kisonga

Maasai Maasai may refer to: *Maasai people *Maasai language *Maasai mythology The Maasai mythology or Maasai religion are the traditional beliefs of the Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania. In Maasai culture, nature and its elements are important facets ...

groups of 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 ...

. The game was first described in 1904 by a German soldier, Moritz Merker, who was serving in the Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe in

German East Africa German East Africa (GEA; german: Deutsch-Ostafrika) was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mo ...

. Merker later became the first

ethnologist Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...

to study the Maasai culture. En Gehé is traditionally played by men and

warrior A warrior is a person specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior aristocracies, class, or caste. History Warriors seem to have ...

s, and it usually played in teams of six–eight people. According to the Maasai

oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people w ...

, it was devised by Sindillo, son of the first man Maitoumbe.

Rules

The board used to play En Gehé is one of the biggest mancala boards; it comprises two rows of up to 40-50 pits each. Rows are called ''el mátuan'' (sing. ''ol mátua''); pits are called '''n gurtót'' (sing. ''en gurtóto''). Each team of players own one of the rows. At game setup, there are 4 seeds in each pit, for a total amount of 320-400 seeds needed to play the game. Seeds are called ''es soido'' (sing. ''os soid''). ''

Caesalpinia bonduc ''Guilandina bonduc'', commonly known as grey nicker, nicker bean,relay-sows them counterclockwise. If the last seed falls in empty pit of the team's row, any seeds in the opposite pit are captured and removed from the game, together with the seed that captured them. The game ends when one the teams has no seeds in its row. The opponent team captures all the seeds, and the winning team is the one that captured most seeds.

References

* Merker, M. (1904) ''Die Masai: Ethnographische Monographie eines ostafrikanischen Semitenvolkes'', Berlin: Dietrich Reimer (Ernst Vohlsen): 36-37 & 272. * Murray, H. J. R. (1951) ''A History of Board-Games other than Chess'', Oxford: Oxford University Press: 199. * Townshend, P. (1979) ''Mankala in Eastern and Southern Africa'', in Azania: Journal of the British Institute in Eastern Africa; 14: 109–138. {{DEFAULTSORT:En Gehe Traditional mancala games Entertainment in Tanzania Maasai