Shax (board game)

Shax is a traditional two-player board game of the Horn of Africa, played above all in Somalia, where it is also known as jar or djelga, and in Lesotho as mororova. It is usually played on a board scratched into the ground, with pebbles or sticks as pieces, and it uses the same board as nine men's morris. Players first place their pieces and then move them in an effort to form mills, lines of three. Its rules differ from the European game in an important way: a mill made during placement does not remove an enemy piece at once. When placement ends, the player who made the first mill may remove one opposing piece, and the other player may do the same whether or not they made a mill. A player who cannot move forces the opponent to open a space, and the flying rule is not used. Shax holds a place in Somali oral literature, where poems and sayings cite its strategies, and in nomadic life it also served as a way for clans to communicate and for elders to talk through social questions. Its exact age is not recorded, and sources say only that it is very old.