Gameboard

Zanzibar bao is a game two people play on a board (bao) with 32 cuplike depressions arranged in fours rows, eight per row. The playing pieces are uniform seeds or pebbles. Zanzibar bao belongs to a family of count-and-capture board games that are generically described in publications as mankala. While mankala is a contemplative game of strategy, it is played with great speed and in the presence of a vocal audience--a true test of mental and physical agility and power of concentration. Localized variations are played on two-, three- or four-row boards throughout Africa and in parts of the Americas, Europe and Asia. Africa is the only place where all three board types are found. Swahili versions, including Zanzibar bao, require a four-row board that is distinguished by a hole in each of the inner rows that is larger or differently shaped. In this example square holes appear among the round. The select pieces contained in the square holes are used advantageously during the game.

Professional carvers made decorated game boards for purchase. They were traditionally decorated with geometric designs reminiscent of those found on the doors of 19th-century houses. A large, well-carved board conveyed status, both due to the fact that the owner could afford it and had the intellectual ability to use it. Today the game is still popular although contemporary carvers use ebony wood for the boards.

Rectangular gameboard with four rows of eight depressions, two of which are rectangular, and the other thirty are round. A circular projection at one end of the board has a heart shaped depression.

Steven Oliver Taylor, acquired Zanzibar, ca. 1992

Peter Adler, London, before 1995 to 1997

African Mosaic: Selections from the Permanent Collection, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 19, 2013–August 12, 2019 (installed November 6, 2015 to February 26, 2018)

Gameboards, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., May 27-November 30, 1998

Curnow, Kathy. 2014. At Home in Africa: Design, Beauty, and Pleasing Irregularity in Domestic Settings. Cleveland: The Galleries at Cleveland State University.

Walker, Roslyn A. 1995. "Gameboard." Africa: The Art of a Continent, ed. by Tom Phillips. Munich, London: Prestel, p. 147, no. 228.

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