Morabaraba

Morabaraba is a traditional two-player strategy board game played in South Africa and Botswana, with a slightly different variation played in Lesotho. It is also known as mlabalaba, mmela in Setswana, muravava and umlabalaba. The game is similar to twelve men's morris, and players call the line of three stones a mill. In Morabaraba the stone pieces are called cows, a name that reflects its popularity among young herders of cattle. The earliest known diagram of the game is said to be in an Egyptian temple at Kurna, dating to around 1440 BC, and morris-type games exist in many parts of the world. The name is said to come from the Southern Sotho moraba-raba, meaning to mill or to go round in a circle.