Unveiling Forgotten Grids
Ancient board games in pre-colonial Africa are rarely discussed with the seriousness they deserve. Too often, these games are consigned to the margins of “leisure activity” or “children’s play,” obscuring their rich symbolic significance and complex social roles. The evidence—both archaeological and ethnographic—tells a different story: these games were anything but trivial. They reveal coded languages of power, cosmology, and community that challenge our assumptions about the intellectual life of early African societies.
Boards as Microcosms of Order
It is easy to mistake the simple, carved boards of games like Mancala or Senet (yes, Senet-like games appeared in Nubia) for mere toys. Yet their layouts—rows of pits or squares, symmetrical grids—reflect more than chance or convenience. The logic of these boards often echoes the logic of the cosmos as conceived by their creators.
Consider Mancala, which goes by dozens of names across the continent. Its dual rows of pits and cyclical movement of seeds serve as metaphors for the agricultural cycles that shaped daily life. In Yoruba cosmology, the game board has been read as a map of the universe: the pits representing stars, the act of sowing mirroring the gods’ creation of the world. This is not accidental. Across West and East Africa, oral traditions and ritual practices elevate Mancala beyond pastime to a tool for teaching, divination, and even dispute resolution.
Contest and Consensus
One persistent myth is that board games are primarily competitive, designed to crown a winner. Pre-colonial African games complicate this notion. Many, such as Morabaraba in Southern Africa, blend competition with cooperation. While there is a winner, the structure of the game encourages conversation, negotiation, and even alliance-building. Anthropologists studying Fulani pastoralists in West Africa have documented Mancala sessions that serve as informal councils, where disputes are hashed out move by move, seeds standing in for arguments and concessions.
Moreover, the design of these games often rewards strategic patience and foresight rather than brute force. In Oware, a Ghanaian variant of Mancala, the goal is to “capture” seeds—but to do so carelessly is to lose the trust of your opponent and the respect of onlookers. The ideal player is not a ruthless conqueror, but a steward—an echo, perhaps, of how land and power were managed in many African societies.
Gender, Power, and Hidden Codes
To dismiss ancient African board games as “child’s play” is to overlook their role as instruments of socialization and status. In some regions, the right to play certain games was restricted by gender, age, or class. Among the Swahili of the East African coast, Bao—a notoriously complex Mancala variant—was historically the domain of adult men, its intricate strategies paralleling the maneuverings of trade and diplomacy in the Indian Ocean world.
Speculatively, one could argue that the transmission of advanced strategies through generations functioned as a form of encoded wisdom, accessible only to those deemed worthy. This is not unique to Africa—chess in medieval Europe played a similar gatekeeping role—but it is rarely acknowledged in global histories of gaming.
Women, too, wielded games for their own purposes. Among the Himba of Namibia, girls played Omuti, a local variant, in groups, weaving stories and social bonds as they played. Here, the game was not just recreation but rehearsal for adult responsibilities—resource allocation, coalition-building, even subversive critique of elders.
Boards Across Borders
Archaeological finds reveal that African board games traveled widely, carried by traders, migrants, and conquerors. Excavations in the ancient city of Jenne-Jeno (Mali) have uncovered Mancala boards dating back over a thousand years, while similar boards appear as far afield as Sudan, Egypt, and Madagascar. This distribution hints at robust networks of exchange, challenging the stereotype of pre-colonial Africa as isolated or technologically stagnant.
What is striking is how the rules and symbolism of these games morph as they move. A game that signals status in one culture becomes a tool for courtship in another. In Ethiopia, the game Gebbeta was used to train warriors in tactical thinking. In Madagascar, Fanorona—a unique, indigenous board game—became entwined with royal ritual, its patterns said to predict political fortune.
Speculation and the Future of Play
If we are to speculate, perhaps the enduring appeal of these ancient games lies in their ambiguity. They are both serious and playful, competitive and cooperative, esoteric and accessible. In a world obsessed with binary outcomes and zero-sum logic, African board games offer a counter-narrative: life is not a single contest, but a series of moves, cycles, and negotiations. The board is not just a battlefield—it is a classroom, a court, and a cosmos.
Enduring Lessons from Ancient Boards
What endures is not the games themselves—many have faded or mutated beyond recognition—but the ethos they embody. The act of gathering around a board, of negotiating rules and reading opponents, speaks to a vision of society rooted in dialogue and mutual respect. In a time when polarization and division are ascendant, the wisdom encoded in Africa’s ancient games feels less like a relic and more like a challenge. We would do well to take our seats at the board, seeds in hand, ready to learn anew.