Mancala is not one game but a large family of “sowing” games, played by moving seeds or stones around rows of pits, with firm evidence going back at least to the Roman era in the Middle East and to the 6th and 7th centuries AD in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Over the centuries it spread across Africa, Asia, parts of Europe and the Americas, developing many local names and rules along the way. The version most Americans call “mancala” is Kalah, a 20th-century adaptation.
Here is what we actually know about mancala’s history, what is still guesswork, and how the game you can play at /mancala fits in.
What the word “mancala” means
The name comes from Arabic. It is built on the root naqala, “to move,” and in Egypt and Syria manqala was the name of a specific local game. English writers later used it as a label for the whole family.
One of the clearest early descriptions in English comes from Edward William Lane’s Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, first published in 1836. Lane wrote that the mankalah was one of the most common games in Egypt, played by two people on a board with twelve holes in two rows and seventy-two cowrie shells or pebbles. He described two ways to play, one for beginners and one for skilled players, and noted that it was a regular sight in coffee shops.
In the 1890s, the American ethnographer Stewart Culin published a study called Mancala, the National Game of Africa, which helped make “mancala” the standard umbrella term.
How old is mancala? Claims vs. evidence
Mancala is often described as one of the oldest games in the world, and that may be true, but the strongest claims are also the least certain. Pits carved in stone are easy to make and very hard to date, and a row of holes is not always a game board.
| Find | Approximate date | How solid is it? |
|---|---|---|
| Rows of pits at Ain Ghazal, Jordan | Neolithic, thousands of years BC | Disputed; other researchers question whether they are game boards |
| Pit rows cut into Egyptian temple stones | Unknown | Hard to date; could have been carved long after the temples were built |
| Pottery boards and rock cuts in a Roman bathhouse at Gedera, Israel | 2nd to 3rd century AD | Generally accepted |
| Board fragments and rock cuts at Matara (Eritrea) and Yeha (Ethiopia) | 6th to 7th century AD | Generally accepted |
| Mention in the Arabic Kitab al-Aghani | 10th century AD | The oldest known written reference |
So the honest answer is that mancala is at least about 1,700 years old, very likely older, and that nobody knows exactly where the first game was played.
How mancala spread
From northeast Africa and the Middle East, mancala games traveled with trade, migration and religion.
- Across Africa. Mancala became part of daily life in much of the continent, from West African Oware and Ayo to East African Bao and Ugandan Omweso.
- Into Asia. Sowing games took root in South India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Central Asia.
- Into Europe. Versions were played in the Balkans and the Baltic, with games surviving in Bosnia and the Greek islands. Two early 18th-century mancala tables are kept at Weikersheim Castle in Germany, and the Oxford scholar Thomas Hyde described the game in 1694.
- To the Americas. Enslaved Africans carried the game across the Atlantic. Versions known as warri are still played in the Caribbean, and Cape Verdean immigrants brought their game, ouril, to New England.
Two rows or four: the main types
Mancala games fall into two broad groups. On two-row boards, each player owns the row nearest to them, and seeds circle around both rows. On four-row boards, each player owns two rows, and seeds stay on their own side unless captured. Four-row games are found mostly in East and southern Africa.
| Game | Where it is played | Board |
|---|---|---|
| Oware (also Awale, Ayo and other names) | West Africa and the Caribbean | 2 rows of 6 pits |
| Bao | East Africa, including Tanzania and Kenya | 4 rows of 8 pits |
| Omweso | Uganda | 4 rows of 8 pits |
| Gebeta | Ethiopia and Eritrea | Usually 2 rows of 6 pits |
| Congkak / Congklak | Malaysia and Indonesia | 2 rows of 7 pits, plus stores |
| Sungka | Philippines | 2 rows of 7 pits, plus stores |
| Pallanguzhi | South India | 2 rows of 7 pits |
| Toguz korgool | Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan | 2 rows of 9 pits |
| Kalah | United States | 2 rows of 6 pits, plus stores |
The rules differ more than the boards do. In Oware, for example, you capture by making the last seed bring a pit on your opponent’s side to exactly two or three seeds, and you are expected not to leave your opponent with nothing to play. Bao has a placing phase and a moving phase and is known as one of the most demanding games in the family.
Kalah: the mancala most Americans know
If you bought a wooden mancala board in a US toy store, you almost certainly learned Kalah. It was developed and sold in the United States in the mid-20th century by William Julius Champion Jr., who patented his version in the 1950s.
Kalah keeps the core idea of sowing but adds features that make it quick to learn:
- Each player has six pits and a large store, or kalah, on their right.
- Each pit starts with four stones.
- You pick up all the stones in one of your pits and drop one in each pit counterclockwise, including your own store but skipping your opponent’s.
- If your last stone lands in your store, you take another turn.
- If your last stone lands in an empty pit on your side, you capture it together with all the stones in the pit directly opposite.
- When one side is empty, the other player keeps their remaining stones, and the most stones in the store wins.
Why mancala is called a counting game
Every mancala move is arithmetic. Before you pick up a pit, you count its seeds and work out where the last one will land: in your store for an extra turn, in an empty pit for a capture, or in a spot that hands your opponent a gift. Strong players count several moves ahead and save up large pits to sweep around the board later. That is why mancala is popular with teachers as a way to practice counting and planning, and why a seemingly simple game rewards years of play.
Play mancala today
You can play Mancala free with a friend on one phone, tablet or computer, or against a computer opponent on Easy, Medium or Hard. It uses Kalah rules with four stones per pit and works offline after your first visit. Start with the Mancala rules guide for setup, extra turns and captures, then try the beginner Mancala strategy tutorial to chain extra turns and set up captures. For more head-to-head games, see our two player games and games you can play against the computer.