Resource 4: The cultural game of Africa

RULES FOR PLAYING IGISORO

The object of the game is to capture all your opponent’s pieces.

Igisoro is a two-player game in the Mancala family. This variant is played primarily in Rwanda. Igisoro, like Omweso, is played with an 8 x 4 board of pits and 64 seeds. A player's territory is the two rows of pits closest to them.

Start

The starting position is shown below. Each player starts with four seeds in each pit in the back row of his/her territory.

Turns

On his/her turn, a player chooses a pit containing seeds in his/her territory and sows them, placing one seed in each pit as he/she moves counter-clockwise around that player’s territory. The board below shows the state after the first player chose to move the seeds from the pit highlighted in yellow.

At the end of a turn, there are two ways in which the player’s turn may continue:

• If the pit where the last seed is sown is not empty, the player picks up all seeds from this pit and begins to sow again, starting from the next pit.
• If the pit where the last seed is sown is not empty and both opponent’s opposite pits are not empty, the player may pick up all seeds from these two pits and begin to sow again. When the player chooses to pick up the opponent’s seeds, the sowing begins again from the pit where the player originally began his or her turn, thus sowing seeds in the same pits as the original move.

If the player chooses not to pick up the opponent’s seeds, he/she has to say: ‘I pass’ (ndahise). To which the opponent may reply ‘I retreat’ (ndakubye). Then immediately retreats the seeds that were not picked. The player retreats his/her seeds by picking the seeds in her/his pit at the front row and adding them to his/her adjacent pit in the last row, this is done while the other player is still sowing.

Only for a direct pick or catch, a player starting from, or arriving at, the pits highlighted in yellow below may choose to move clockwise. When he/she starts from any other pit, he/she may only move counter-clockwise.

Completion

The game is over and a player has lost when he or she can not sow any of his or her seeds.

Those are all the rules. Enjoy the game.

Adapted from: Wikipedia, Igisoro, Website

Giuthi Proverb