| Agsinnoninka |
| Other Names: Chuncajon |
| First Description: Morice Vanoverbergh, 1927 |
| Cycles: One |
| Ranks: Two |
| Sowing: Pussa Kanawa |
| Region: Philippines |
Agsinnoninka (also known as Chuncajon) is a mancala game played by the Iloko in the Mountain Province in Northern Luzon, Philippines. The game was first described by Morice Vanoverbergh in 1927.
Agsinnoninka is played by young girls. It is a rather unusual game as all moves are conducted simultaneously. The sowing is of the pussa kanawa type, which is most typical for mancala games played in India, Southern China, Cambodia, and Northern Vietnam.
Rules
The game is played on a board, which is composed of two rows, each one with five holes. There is a store at each end. A player controls the holes on her side of the board.
At the beginning every hole contains the same number of seeds (for instance five).
Possible Initial Position
At their turn, both players lift the contents of one of their holes at the same time. Then they sow their seeds together, one by one, into the ensuing holes and counterclockwise.
When the last seed is sown, the contents of the next hole are distributed in another lap.
If the next hole is empty, the move ends.
If the move finished in one of her own holes, she captures the contents of the opposite hole of her adversary. The captures are put into the player's store.
The game ends when a player can't move because her row is empty. The seeds that weren't captured are won by the player who owns their holes.
Usually the game is played in rounds.
At the start of the next round the players try to fill each of their holes with as many seeds as there had been in the first game. Any surplus is returned to the store. Holes that cannot be filled are said to be "burnt" and are not used in the next game.
The player who can't fill a single hole, has lost the match.
References
- Murray, H. J. R.
- A History of Board-Games Other Than Chess. Oxford University Press, Oxford (England) 1951, 176.
- Vanoverbergh, M.
- Iloko Games. In: Anthropos 1927; 22: 216-243.
Copyright
Adapted from the Wikinfo article, "Agsinnoninka" http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Agsinnoninka, used under the GNU Free Documentation License.