Oware is a mathematical game that involves great reasoning. Two players are traditionally involved in playing Oware, whereas each player is entitle to 6 of the 12 circular shallow holes on a same horizontal row. I remember as a kid, my friends and i used to create 12 circular shallow holes on a dry ground with 6 of such circular shallow holes horizontally facing each other (because as kids we didn’t have the money to buy one of those expensive wooden types seen in the picture). I remember we used palm nuts as marbles. We picked a sum total of 48 palm nuts with 4 pieces in each circular shallow hole. The objective of Oware game is to capture more marbles than your opponent. Because there is a total of 48 marbles in the game, capturing 25 marbles is sufficient to win at a time. Also, there is a possibility that the game could end in a draw where each player captures 24 marbles since the total number of marbles in the game is an even number thus 48. Oware game is historically, believed to be of an Akan origin popularly among the Ashanti’s of Ghana. However, the infamous Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade which resulted in the displacement of many Africans made Oware game transited to the Caribbean and is now a popular game in some countries out there also.
Categories