The Mencala family of games are known to have been played in West Africa for at least 3,500 years, possibly much longer, and remain extremely popular throughout the African continent. Due to their very long history, and the multiplicity of African languages, there are countless variations of both rules and names. The rules presented below will serve anyone challenged to the Igbo game of Ncho but not the superficially similar Gabonese game of Songo; it is one of the challenges of these games that minor changes to the rules have a major impact on game strategy.

Africa's colonial past has seen Caribbean names of Ghanaian origin - Awari and Warri, or Awale from Cote d'Ivoire are those most frequently encountered in the West. But in Lagos and the surrounding states of South West Nigeria, the indigenous Mencala games go under the Yoruba name of Àyò. One of these is similar, if not identical, to standard Awari, the rules of which may be located easily via a web search. The game presented below is a local variant and a little easier to learn. It is a table-top game for two and has a similar cultural role to that of dominoes in the UK or chess in Poland - meaning that it is frequently associated with the consumption of alcohol, the exchange of small sums of money, and the occasional intemperate exchange of opinion.

Playing Equipment

Playing equipment is minimal and cheap, which accounts at least in part for the popularity of the game. It can be played with 48 small stones and 12 holes dug in the ground, and this is how many children first learn the game. The deluxe format is a narrow block of local mahogany, split down the middle, polished and hinged, with a row of six cupped pockets or 'houses' hollowed out on each side. The playing pieces are basically just tokens and anything roundish and of a right and regular size will do: dried beans or kernels are popular, and most sets seem to contain at least two or three mothballs, perhaps to deter termites.

The Objective of the Game

At the start of the game, each player 'owns' the six houses on his side of the board, and 24 tokens, distributed four to each house.

During a round of play, the players can win and withdraw from play tokens in groups of four, each group gaining him possession of a house for the next round. At the end of the round, a player who has increased his share of the tokens, has an increased number of houses under his control and has therefore gained an advantage.

Any player who wins all of the tokens during a round has won the game.

Rules of Play

Players draw lots to see who will start the first round; subsequently they alternate.

At his turn, if a player has no tokens in any of his houses, play reverts to his opponent. Otherwise, he must select one of his houses and pick all the tokens in it. Proceeding anti-clockwise, one token is placed in each of the succeeding houses. Excepting the play of the final token, if the number of tokens in any house is made up to four, those four tokens are won and withdrawn by the player owning the house. At the play of the final token, there are three possibilities:

• If the house was empty, the turn is ended.

• If the house is made up to four tokens, the player wins and withdraws those tokens irrespective of who owns the house. Again play reverts to the opponent.

• Excepting the above, the player picks the contents of the last house and continues his play.

The player who wins the penultimate (11th) group of four tokens also wins the last.

Example of Play

Player 1 starts and elects to play from House 3 placing one token in each of the next four houses.

Turn 1 : Player 1 from House 3

He now picks the five tokens from House 1 of his opponent and plays to House 6.

And to his own House 5...

... Player 2's House 5...

...and back to his own House 5.

As Player 1 has just played to an empty house, his turn ends and Player 2 may start.

Turn 2 : Player 2 from House 6

From House 1 of Player 1.

And finally from his own House 2...

... Player 2 wins the four tokens in his opponents House 3.

Pronunciation

There is no known English (or even Pidgin English) term for the game, so any spoken reference to it (perchance to play) must attempt to get around the Yoruba pronunciation. Basically, the word àyò is pronounced eye-oh, with two equally stressed long vowels. A short o is particularly to be avoided as this will be heard as a totally different letter - conventionally shown with a subscript dot.

Unfortunately, this is only the start of the challenge. Yoruba is a tonal language and has three different pitches for each vowel sound - high, middle and low (á, a , à, or ó, o, ò respectively). Even if one gets the Oh the right length, there are still nine alternative pronunciations four of which (áyó, áyo, àyó, and àyo) are without meaning and will simply cause bewilderment.

Asking someone if they enjoy áyò ('happiness') or ayo ('dinner plate') may invite some speculation as to the depth of one's intellect. The commonest error is to try the European style one-word question ending on a rising pitch. It doesn't work; the inflection is heard as ayó and roughly translates as 'Our hunger has been satisfied'. This may seem either reasonable or ludicrous at the time, depending on the circumstances.

The voice should slide steadily up the eye and down the oh to stand any real chance of comprehension. Ayò is an acceptable alternate.