The 2013 Indigenous Games Festival taking place now in Pretoria, South Africa celebrates local cultural heritage. Several sports are being featured, as well as two native African board games.
Morabaraba is a variation on Nine Men’s Morris, with four diagonal lines added to the board and each player given 12 pieces. The pieces are referred to as cows and a player that moves three of his cows in to a row can shoot a cow of the other player (removing it from the board). A player who’s reduced to two cows or whose cows can’t be moved loses the game.
Ncuva, also known as Tsoro Yematatu, is another abstract strategy game. Played on a triangle-shaped board with seven spaces, a player’s goal in Ncuva is to place all three of his pieces in a row.
[via IOL News]