Nsolo

Nsolo, also recorded under the name Nchombwa, is a traditional four-row mancala game played by the Ngoni people of East Africa. Two players sow counters around a board of four rows of holes, with ten to twenty holes in each row and an even number in each. Every hole starts with two counters except the rightmost hole of each player's inner row, which starts empty. Sowing runs anticlockwise, and when the last counter lands in an occupied hole those counters are lifted and sowing carries on from there. A last counter that falls in an empty inner-row hole captures the counters in the opposite inner-row hole of the opponent, along with the outer-row hole behind it, and a player who takes both may also take the counters from one further hole on the opponent's side. A single counter may only be sown into an empty hole, and only once no hole on that player's side holds more than one. Play continues until one player has captured all of the opponent's counters. The rules summarised here follow the Digital Ludeme Project record, which draws on Sanderson's 1913 account of native games of Central Africa.