Ba-awa is a mancala

Mancala

Mancala is a family of board games played around the world, sometimes called "sowing" games, or "count-and-capture" games, which describes the game-play. Mancala games play a role in many African and some Asian societies comparable to that of chess in the West, or the game of Go in Eastern Asia...

 from Ghana. Although played in some of the same regions as Oware

Oware

Oware is an abstract strategy game of Akan origin. Part of the mancala family, it is played throughout West Africa and the Caribbean. Among its many names are Ayò , Awalé , Wari , Ouri, Ouril or Uril , Warri , Adji , and Awélé...

, it is simpler and in traditional societies is considered a game for women and children. Ba-awa is related to games j'erin

J'erin

Je'rin, also known as jérin-jérin, is a mancala game which is very similar to Ba-awa. It is played by Yoruba people in Nigeria.- Rules :The game has the same rules as Ba-awa except the following:...

 and obridjie played in Nigeria. It is also similar to mancala game anywoli

Anywoli

Anywoli is a traditional mancala game played by the Anuak people of the Gambela province, in Ethiopia, as well as in the Akobo, Pochalla and Jokau regions of Sudan. The name of the game means "bringing to life"...

 played at the Ethiopian-Sudanese border.

Rules

These are the rules as used by the Twi

Twi

Asante, or Ashanti, is one of three literary dialects of the Akan language of southern Ghana, and the prestige dialect of that language. It is spoken in and around Kumasi, the capital of the former Ashanti Empire and current subnational Asante Kingdom within Ghana.Along with the Akuapem dialect,...

, an Akan people from Ghana

Ghana

Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...

.

Equipment

The Ba-awa board has six pits in front of each player, and (optionally) one pit at each end which stores captured seeds.

The only pieces are 48 undifferentiated seeds or other small objects.

Setup

Typically, several games are played in a row.

At the beginning of the first game four seeds are placed in each pit except the end pits. Subsequent games also begin with four seeds in each pit, however the ownership of the pits may have changed.

Object

The nominal object of a match is to gain control of all the pits on the board; however, this is so hard the game is usually only played to ten or eleven pits.

Sowing

Players take turns moving the seeds. On a turn, a player chooses one of the pits under their control. The player removes all seeds from this pits, and distributes them in each pit counter-clockwise from this pit, in a process called sowing. Seeds are not distributed into the end scoring pits. If the last seed ends in an occupied pit, then all the seeds in that pit including the last one are resown starting from that pit. These multiple turns continue until the sowing process ends, either in an empty pit or a capture of four seeds.

Capturing

If at any time during sowing, a pit has exactly four seeds, all four are immediately captured and removed from play. There can be many such captures during sowing. Also, if the last pit sown into then has four seeds, these four seeds are captured and the sowing process ends.

End of the game

When there are just eight seeds left on the board, the player who began the game takes these and the game ends. In the next game, each player begins with a pit for each four seeds captured. Since captures are always made in multiples of four, this will be even.