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[Mr Mancala]

Mr Mancala 4,265 edits since September 26, 2008

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From Mancala World

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Contents

Welcome and "Hallo"!

My page in German. Meine Seite auf Deutsch.
My page in Portuguese. Minha página em portugues.

My name is Ralf Gering. I live in Germany, in a tiny village between Bonn and Koblenz. My favorite hobbies are mancala games, hiking, cooking and animals (I have three chicken and four running ducks). In my spare time I co-moderate the Yahoo!Group mancalagames, a gorgeous forum founded by the British Oware player Paul Smith, and I am the owner of a large international forum (over 700 registered members) on intentional communities. I have studied Culture and Religion at Tübingen University and graduated in 1999 (Master of Arts).

That's me (not the dog).

My favorite mancala games are Togus kumalak (German spelling ;-), Lamlameta, 55Stones, Kauri and Layli Goobalay (as played in Berbera, Somaliland).

I have invented numerous mancala games: 55Stones (2002), Afrika (2004), Geisterfahrer (2004), Pas de Deux (2004), Progressive Mancala (2004), Rondell (2005), Kauri (2006), Manji (2007) and Trias (2008). In addition, I suggested some meta-games such as Condi Mancala (2006) and Royal Mancala (2006). There are also a few other board games I authored: Netak (1973), Doppelt hält besser (mid-1970s), Dornröschendame (1986), 1000-Volt-Go (1988; tournaments in Germany and the USA), Walking Purchase (2001) and Écoute-moi! (2002).

In my library, I have a small collection of mancala boards (about 50), a growing number of monographs on mancala games (33 at the moment) and many research articles on mancala (more than 400).

The highlights of my collection (traditional boards only) are:

  • An Adi board (Teak wood, adorned with graven huts) from Togo (Kpalimé region)
  • Four Oware boards ("Airport" style) and one magnificent Oware game table (board carried by an elephant) from Ghana
  • Two Bao boards from Zanzibar, Tanzania
  • Three Toguz Kumalak boards (plastics) from Kazakhstan
  • One Toguz Korgool board (plastics) from Kyrgyztan
  • A Chonka board (lacquered wood) from Borneo, Indonesia
  • A fish-shaped Dakon board (wood batik) from Java, Indonesia
  • A sophisticated Mechiwa board from Bali, Indonesia
  • A Sungka board (wood batik) from the Philippines

I authored numerous articles for the Canadian Abstract Games magazine. In 2002/2003 I was a jury member of the Simultaneous Game Design Competition sponsored by About Abstract Games and Abstract Games magazine. What a pity - there wasn't even a single mancala game!

My Articles

First published on wikimanQala

I authored the following articles (the actual name on Mancala World is given):

Modern Mancala Games

Traditional Mancala Games

Other Sowing Games

Meta-Games

Other Terms related to Mancala

People related to Mancala

Mancala Lists

Dictionaries

First published on Wikinfo

Modern Mancala Games

Two-dimensional Sowing Games

Traditional Mancala Games

Meta-Games

General Mancala Articles

First published on Mancala World

The following articles were first published here:

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