Tchonka

From Wikimanqala

Tchonka

Played in: Mariana Islands

Multiple lap
One cycle
7 holes per row
Two rows

The Chamorro are the native people of the Mariana Islands, once an independent kingdom in northwestern Oceania / Micronesia. First they suffered under the "fanatic missionary zeal of Spanish monks" (G. Gritz), then they became a German "protectorate" (bought in 1899 from Spain), and today they are an American colony.

Georg Fritz, the German commander-in-chief of Saipan wrote an extensive history and ethnography of the Chamorro which was published in 1904 by the Royal Museum of Ethnology in Berlin. He described tchonka which appears to be almost identical with sungka, the predominant mancala variant played in the Philippines. The game also resembles dakon on the island of Java and Ohvalhu in the Maldives.

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Rules

Tchonka is played on a wooden board slightly over 70 cm long. It has seven small holes (in the German article: "Ställe" = "sheds") and a larger store, the "till" (German: "Kasse"), at each end. The players own the till on their left side. Initially there are seven stones, sea shells or snail shells in each shed.

Initial Position

A player picks up the contents of any of the seven sheds on his side of the board and then distributes his pieces clockwise, one by one, into the following sheds, his own till, but not into the opponent's till.

If the last piece is put into a non-empty shed, its contents are distributed again in another lap.

The move ends if the last piece is dropped into an empty shed.

If the move ends in an empty shed at the player's side, all contents of the opposite shed are captured and put into the player's till.

Fritz doesn't write whether the own piece is also captured (as in the Philippines) or not. Neither does his description say that a player has another move if he drops his last piece in his own till. It is quite possible that his description is incomplete.

The player who captures most pieces wins. Fritz wrote that the endgame can become lengthy.

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