OWARE

Abapa Version

AN Introduction by: KOFI C. AGUDOAWU Copyright 1991

Oware is one of the world’s famous games. Oware is one of the hundreds of names it is called, for a set of five different versions of play in Ghana. The two-row Oware board is used almost universally north of the Equator. It is popular throughout Africa, as well as parts of Asia, in the Philippines, the West Indies and South America. It was played by Kings on beautifully carved ivory boards embellished with gold, and played by children in holes scooped out on the earth, using pebbles or seeds as counters.

Oware is a game of great antiquity. There is evidence that a Sumerian invented it several thousand years ago as a system of record keeping having debit and credit entries. One side indicated money and goods received, and the other recorded sales and payments. Stone carvings of the game board surviving from Ancient Egypt have been discovered in the roofing slabs of Kuma temple at Thebes, in the summit of the great pylon at the entrance of the temple of Kamak, and at Luxor temple. Rock cut boards of great antiquity have been found at Zimbabwe, in Uganda; and in Ghana it was found in the temple of Tarkora in Tanabouse in the Techiman district.

Oware is probably the most arithmetical game with mass following anywhere in the world. In its simplest form it can be played purely as a game of chance. In its complex version it is played rather as a game of strategy.

There is a legend in Twi, the language of the Asante people of Ghana that Oware began when a man and a woman played the game on end. To always be together and someday end the various games, they married. Hence the name Oware or Wari means he/she
marries. In another context it translates: It is a lifelong affair still bearing on marriage.


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