Gameboard
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Object Details
- Yoruba artist
- Label Text
- This gameboard is for playing ayoayo, the Yoruba version of mankala (also mancala), the generic term for an ancient family of "count and capture" games. Played by two people or, rarely, two teams, ayoayo uses undifferentiated pieces and a board with cuplike depressions evenly distributed in two, three or four parallel rows. The goal is for a player to capture a majority of the pieces or at least to immobilize his or her opponent. The successful player depends on strategy more than luck to win.
- Mankala is or has been played in parts of Africa, Asia and the Americas. African captives brought the game to the Americas during the era of the Atlantic slave trade. Because of its wide distribution and the presence of two-, three-, and four-row gameboards on the continent, mankala has been called Africa's "national" game. It has thousands of vernacular names. The Yoruba ayoayo (meaning "real ayo," a men's term used to distinguish their game from those played by women and children) is played on a 2-row, 12-hole board (opon ayo), the type that predominates in West Africa. Hard, grayish green, inedible seeds act as the game pieces.
- Gameboards range from holes scooped out of the ground or formed in exposed tree roots to wooden gameboards carved by professional artists. This elaborately decorated example is supported by 10 male figures and decorated with a male and female couple at one end and a pair of snakes at the other. Finely crafted boards like this were emblems of elevated political or social status and sometimes were given as prestigious gifts to important visitors.
- Description
- Two row, six cup gameboard with crouching figures between the cups and two standing figures, one male, one female at the end.
- Provenance
- Josef Müller, Solothurn, Switzerland, -- to 1977
- Jean Paul Barbier and Monique Barbier-Mueller, Geneva, 1977 to 1993
- Exhibition History
- Gameboards, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., May 27-November 30, 1998
- Art of the Personal Object, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., September 24, 1991-April 9, 2007
- Published References
- National Museum of African Art. 1999. Selected Works from the Collection of the National Museum of African Art. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, p. 51, no. 79.
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- Credit Line
- Gift of Monique and Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller
- Early to mid-20th century
- Object number
- 93-2-1
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Type
- Sculpture
- Medium
- Wood
- Dimensions
- H x W x D: 9 x 65.5 x 18.6 cm (3 9/16 x 25 13/16 x 7 5/16 in.)
- Geography
- Nigeria
- See more items in
- National Museum of African Art Collection
- Object Name
- opon ayo
- National Museum of African Art
- Topic
- Status
- snake
- male
- female
- Record ID
- nmafa_93-2-1
- Metadata Usage (text)
- Usage conditions apply
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ys7443cab7d-eb29-486a-86de-2535c683fe9a
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