hist-games: Huss/Mancala/Wari

[Thierry Depaulis]

Rebecca wrote:
>I have a friend who plays/teaches a version of Mancala/Wari that he calls
>"Huss" and he says it is the only version of the Mancala-type games played
>in Europe during the SCA time frame.  He actually gets insulted if you call
>his game Mancala!  As far as I can tell his Huss is just another version of
>Mancala.  I haven't been able to find any references to Huss, but
>information about Mancala and Wari is vast.  Has anyone else heard about
>Huss?

"the only version of the Mancala-type games played in Europe during the SCA
time frame"??
Is he serious? I have never met "Huss" in Europe during my life which has
been very long (I was born in 1012)!

"Huss", or '||hus' (please note the TRUE spelling...), is a four-row
mancala game. It's a Herrero game. Herrero live in Namibia (formerly called
South-West Africa).

THE reference on '||hus' is:

Townshend, Philip. "The SWA game of ||hus (das Lochspiel) in the wider
context of African mankala", In: Journal - SWA Wissenschaftliche
Gesellschaft / Scientific Society (Windhoek), 31, 1977, p. 85-98.

Philip Townshend is a British anthropologist who is the leading authority
on African mancala games.

There is a description of ||hus (aka 'otjitoto') in Larry Russ's The
complete mancala games book : How to play the world's oldest board games.
New York : Marlowe & Company, 1999 (pp.111-2).

It seems '||hus' is pronounced with "clicks". Does your friend use "clicks"?

Thierry Depaulis