What is Bao la Kiswahili?
Bao la Kiswahili is the full game of Bao, the four-row mancala of East Africa, as it is played by the masters of Zanzibar. The board has four rows of eight pits and no stores. You own the two rows nearest you: an inner row facing your opponent and an outer row behind it. The fifth pit from your left in your inner row is the nyumba, the house, which is often carved square. The two end pits of the inner row are the kichwa, and each kichwa with its neighbour is a kimbi.
Not all the seeds start on the board. Each player begins with 6 seeds in the nyumba, 2 in each of the two pits to its right and 22 in hand. The game opens with the namua stage: every turn you take one seed from your hand and put it into an occupied pit of your inner row. If one of those pits faces seeds in your opponent's inner row, you must put the seed there and capture: the facing seeds are sown into your own rows from a kichwa, and sowing goes on from there. If no capture exists, you make a takasa: the pit you put the seed in is emptied and sown, and the sowing relays on from every occupied pit it ends in until a seed lands in an empty pit.
While you own your nyumba and it holds six seeds or more, it has special powers in the namua stage. A takasa that ends in it stops there. A capturing move that ends in it lets you choose to stop or to play the nyumba on, which is called going on safari. It may start a takasa only when it is the only occupied pit in your inner row, and then it is taxed: just two of its seeds are sown and it stays yours. You lose the nyumba when it is emptied or captured.
When both hands are empty the mtaji stage begins, and the game continues much as Bao la Kujifunza: you sow from a pit of your own holding at least two seeds, in either direction, and captures stay compulsory. The first capture of this stage ends both nyumbas. A further rule, takasia, can stop you from emptying a threatened pit for one turn. You win by emptying your opponent's inner row or leaving them without a legal move.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Mancala | Bao la Kiswahili |
|---|---|---|
| Board | Standard MancalaTwo rows of six pits and two stores; you own one row and the store on your right. | Bao la KiswahiliFour rows of eight pits and no stores. You own an inner and an outer row, 16 pits; the fifth pit from your left in the inner row is the square nyumba. |
| Seeds | Standard Mancala4 seeds in each pit, 48 in all, all on the board from the start. | Bao la Kiswahili64 seeds. Each player starts with 6 in the nyumba, 2 in each of the two pits to its right, and 22 in hand. |
| Stages | Standard MancalaOne: every move sows seeds already on the board. | Bao la KiswahiliTwo: the namua stage while you still hold seeds in hand, then the mtaji stage. |
| A namua turn | Standard MancalaPick up all the seeds of one of your pits and sow them. | Bao la KiswahiliPut one seed from your hand into an occupied pit of your inner row. That pit then captures, or is emptied and sown. |
| Capturing | Standard MancalaOptional result of a move: your last seed lands in an empty pit of yours with seeds opposite. | Bao la KiswahiliCompulsory. In the namua stage, the seed from hand goes into a pit facing seeds; in the mtaji stage, the first lap from a pit of 2 to 15 seeds ends in an occupied inner pit facing seeds. The captured seeds are sown into your own rows from a kichwa, and the move goes on. |
| Turns without a capture | Standard MancalaSow once; you move again if the last seed lands in your store. | Bao la KiswahiliTakasa: nothing is captured, and sowing relays on from occupied pits until a lap ends in an empty pit. In the mtaji stage you must start from your inner row if you can. |
| The nyumba | Standard MancalaNo pit is special. | Bao la KiswahiliIn the namua stage, while you own it and it holds 6 or more seeds, a sowing that ends in it stops, unless a capturing move chooses safari and plays it on. It starts a takasa only when nothing else is left in your inner row, and then sows just 2 seeds. |
| Takasia | Standard MancalaNo such rule. | Bao la KiswahiliAfter a takasa in the mtaji stage, if you have no capture and exactly one of your pits is under threat, you may not start your next move from that pit, and a lap that ends there stops. |
| How to win | Standard MancalaHave more seeds in your store when one side runs out. | Bao la KiswahiliEmpty your opponent's inner row, or leave them without a legal move. Seeds are never counted. |
History
Bao, Swahili for board or board game, is played across East Africa and is most at home on the Swahili coast of Tanzania and Kenya. Bao la Kiswahili, Swahili Bao, is the full game. Its beginners' form, Bao la Kujifunza, the Bao of learning, leaves out the seeds in hand and the nyumba; both can be played here.
The rules played here are those recorded by the board game scholar Alex de Voogt, who learned the game from Bao masters in Zanzibar between 1991 and 1995 and described it in his study Limits of the Mind: Towards a Characterisation of Bao Mastership (Leiden, 1995). The game is known for being hard to master: de Voogt studied how its masters plan and calculate their moves, and recorded games between them.
Jeroen Donkers set the same rules out precisely enough for a computer in an appendix to his doctoral thesis, Nosce Hostem: Searching with Opponent Models (Maastricht, 2003), and used the game in his research on game-playing programs. The engine on this site follows that formalisation, and its tests replay, move for move, a game played in Zanzibar in 1994 and recorded by de Voogt. Where the sources leave a detail open, such as how the takasia rule is read, it follows later commentators.
Bao is organised by societies such as Chama cha Bao, founded in 1966, and played in official tournaments in Tanzania, Zanzibar, Lamu in Kenya, and Malawi. A strong player is honoured with the title bingwa, master.