Morabaraba

Morabaraba is a traditional two-player strategy board game played in South Africa and Botswana with a slightly different variation played in Lesotho. This game is known by many names in many languages, including mlabalaba, mmela (in Setswana), muravava, and umlabalaba. The game is similar to twelve men's morris, a variation on the Roman board game nine men's morris, which was based on the Egyptian game. The earliest known diagram of Marabaraba was found in an Egyptian temple in Kurna, Egypt, dating back to around 1440 BC. Other boards have been discovered in Ceylon / Sri Lanka (c. AD 10) and in the Gokstad Viking ship (c. AD 900).
While some believed that morabaraba was introduced to Southern Africa by British settlers, morris variants exist in many parts of the world, e.g., India (char bhar), Ghana (achi), Kenya (shisimia), Somalia (shax), Zimbabwe (tsoro yemutwelve), Iran(dooz), the Philippines (tapatan) and Mongolia (gurgaldaj). It is claimed that morabaraba boards carved in rock are dated to be at least 800 years old, which would exclude a European origin. As Nine Men’s Morris and later 12, uses the term Men for the game pieces and Marabaraba uses the term Cows for the stone pieces, both use the term a “Mill” for the line of three protected stones. It is reasonable that both games derived from the Egyptian game, one via the Roman and one directly. The mancala-type game of moruba (using rows of cupules) is yet another Egyptian game that is played historically throughout Africa, not merely in the South.
Morabaraba is today most popular amongst rural African youth in Southern Africa, but can be seen daily at any non-city bus stop being played by adult passing time. In the traditional European games like nine men's morris, the counters are commonly referred to as "men", but in the South African game the counters are referred to as "cows", the game being particularly popular amongst youth who herd cattle.
According to the OxfordDictionaries.com, the term morabaraba is derived from the Southern Sotho moraba-raba, meaning 'to mill' or 'to go round in a circle'.
Morabaraba is accessible and easy to learn, and games can be played quickly, but the strategic and tactical aspects of the game run deep. While it may be played on specially produced boards (or simulated by computer software as a video game), it is simple enough that a board can easily be scratched on a stone or into sand, with coins or pebbles (or whatever comes to hand) used as the pieces. The description below is compatible with Mind Sports South Africa's "generally accepted rules".
There are three main phases to the game:
Currently the International Wargames Federation is the international governing body for the game as a competitive sport, and Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA) is the South African governing body. MSSA is recognised by both the South African Department of Sports and Recreation and the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) .
MSSA has developed amateur leagues, using different regional versions of the game, throughout the country, and has adopted a notation scoring system similar to that for nine men's morris.
Since 1997, Morabaraba World Championships have been held, in three divisions: senior (i.e. adult males), women, and junior (boys and girls). Divisional winners are shown in the table below.
This is the variation typically played by Sesotho-speakers in South Africa and Lesotho. It differs from the standard form in that the board does not have diagonals between the center points of its sides and there is an additional intersection in the center of the board to prevent a draw. The online version of the Morabaraba Sesotho variation developed by Botho University Maseru Campus Student; Moeketsi Faso may be accessed on http://morabaraba.online
This is a European variation that uses the same board as morabaraba but is played with eleven counters. This prevents a situation where the game can end in a draw in the placement phase.
This is a Korean variation that uses the same board as morabaraba and is played with twelve counters. But when the counter is removed in the placement phase, that place is "marked" and both players cannot place their counter in that place (i.e., all 24 counters must be placed in a different place). This rule does not apply after the moving phase, and you can move pieces to places that are marked.
The standard Welt–Mühlespiel–Dachverband notation for nine men's morris works well for morabaraba (see diagram). It is very similar to algebraic notation in chess. The board is laid out on a grid, with the columns in the grid being labelled a–g (from left to right), and rows in the grid being labelled from 1–7 (bottom to top). Each point is then referred to by its coordinate; for example, the top-left point in the middle (not inner) square is labelled b6. Moves are then formatted as in chess or draughts: placing a piece is denoted simply by the square where it is placed; moving a piece by the from and to squares (e.g. c5-d5); capturing by appending the captured piece to the move (e.g., c5-b6xe5 or c4xa1).