Isolo is a traditional mancala

Mancala

Mancala is a family of board games played around the world, sometimes called "sowing" games, or "count-and-capture" games, which describes the game-play. Mancala games play a role in many African and some Asian societies comparable to that of chess in the West, or the game of Go in Eastern Asia...

 game played by the Sukuma

Sukuma

The Sukuma is the largest ethnic group in Tanzania, with an estimated 5.5 million members representing about 16 percent of the country's total population. Sukuma means "north" and refers to "people of the north"...

 people in northern Tanzania

Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

. The rules of the game come in three variants, respectively for women, boys and men.

Equipment

The board used to play Isolo (also known as isolo) comprised 4 rows of 8 pits each, and 64 seeds (usually Caesalpinia bonduc

Caesalpinia bonduc

Caesalpinia bonduc, commonly known as Gray Nicker, is a species of flowering plant in the pea family, Fabaceae, that has a pantropical distribution. It is a vine-like shrub that reaches a length of and scrambles over other vegetation. Stems are covered in curved spines...

seeds) are used; the equipment is thus the same as that of many other East Africa

East Africa

East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...

n mancalas such as Bao

BAO

BAO may refer to:* Baccalaureus in Arte Obstetricia, Bachelor of Obstetrics, a medical degree unique to Ireland.* Baryon acoustic oscillations, a signature of the early universe observed in galaxy surveys.* Benny Anderssons Orkester* Bullets And Octane...

 and Omweso

Omweso

Omweso is the traditional mancala game of the Ugandan people. The game was supposedly introduced by the Bachwezi people of the ancient Bunyoro-kitara empire of Uganda. Nowadays the game is dominated by Ugandan villagers. It is a very hard and fast game said to keep one's mind high and ever...

. Also as in Bao and Omweso, each player controls half of the board (two rows). Some Isolo boards feature two larger pits that are not part of the game but might be used to keep the score.

Rules for women

At game setup, two seeds are placed in each pit. At her turn, the player takes the seeds from any of her pits holding two or more seeds, and sows them counterclockwise in her two rows. If the last seed falls in an empty pit, the turn is over. If the last seeds falls in a non empty pit of the inner row, and there are any seeds in the opponent's player's pits in the same column, those seeds are captured. The capturing player will then sow these captured seeds starting from the pit where the capturing seed was dropped. If the last seed is dropped in a non empty pit but a capture is not possible, then relay-sowing applies.

The first player that cannot move (as her pits are empty or only hold one seed each) loses the game.

Rules for boys

The rules for boys are much like those for women. Game setup is different, and is as depicted in this table:

17 2 0 2 0 2 0 2
0 1 2 0 2 0 2 0
0 2 0 2 0 2 1 0
2 0 2 0 2 0 2 17

Another difference is that there is an "overture" phase whereby players will only use the pits from the 7 lefthand columns (i.e., they will not be able to sow from or through their rightmost pits), just as if the board was 2x7 instead of 2x8. Also, seeds from the rightmost column of each player cannot be captured. The overture phase ends when the player chooses to sow from his ng'hana (the pit holding 17 seeds). Note that each player may decide when to end his overture independent of his opponent.