Games in culture: a contextual analysis of the Swahili board game and its relevance to variation in African Mankala.

Abstract

The title evokes the Games in Culture hypothesis of Roberts et alia (American Anthropologist 1959) according to which a simple correlation exists between the socio-political organization of any given society and the type of game played there: in particular 'simple' societies are deemed incapable of inventing and unlikely to borrow games of strategy. The thesis scrutinizes these findings, finds them naive and inadequate where not false, and inquires more closely into the true nature of the relationship between Mankala (and by implication games more generally) and society. A dual approach is used, firstly focussing intensively on the highly complex Swahili game of Bao in its social context, and secondly on Mankala as a genre exhibiting extensive variation as documented by the author's personal research and accounts by others.