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Songo is an African board game from the family of sowing games, also known as |Mancala. Songo is a strategic board game that consists of a rectangular wooden board, with two rows and 14 holes. The game is designed to be played by two individuals, but Songo is a game of social interactions, which implies that the audience also engages/intervenes in the gameplay.

Distribution of Songo board game

Songo is popularly know to be the game of the Ekang or Fang ethnic group,in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the northwest corner of the D. R. of the Congo. Interestingly,  Cotton Powell in his anthropological work, reports in 1931 that Songo is also played among the Douala ethnic group in Cameroon. In Cameroon, this game is played by the Ewondo, Bene, Ntum, Bulu, and Douala. According to H. J. Braunholtz, a British archaeologist, Songo means “small pebbles,” that is, the pieces used by the players. Nevertheless, the game is particularly popular in these countries, and even in the digital age, groups of Songo players are still found in cities like Yaoundé, the capital city of Cameroon.

Game Rules The game rules vary depending on the particular ethnic group, Douala, Ewondo, Bulu, or country. For example, the Douala Songo is played with eight seeds in hole, while the Ewondo Songo is played with five seeds in each hole. Similar differences are found in the gameplay rules of Songo in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, when compare to Songo played in Cameroon. These nuances and/or differences in the game rules are not unique to Songo. The rules of African board games often differ from country to country or from ethnic group group to ethnic group, even when their physical appearance is similar, as it the case of Songo here. Nevertheless, in this article, we discuss the rules of the Ewondo Songo

References Powell-Cotton, P. H. G. A Mancala Board Called Songo. In: Man: A Monthly Record of Anthropological Science 1931; 31: 123 plus Plate G. Murray, H. J. R. A History of Board-Games Other Than Chess. Oxford University Press, Oxford (England) 1951, 184-185