Editing Mancala (section)

=== Equipment ===
[[File:Tropenmuseum Royal Tropical Institute Objectnumber 699-2 Speelbord voor mancala spel.jpg|thumb|Mancala board and clay playing pieces]]

Equipment is typically a board, constructed of various materials, with a series of holes arranged in rows, usually two or four. The materials include clay and other shapeable materials. Some games are more often played with holes dug in the earth, or carved in stone. The holes may be referred to as "depressions", "pits", or "houses". Sometimes, large holes on the ends of the board called ''stores'', are used for holding the pieces.

Playing pieces are seeds, beans, stones, [[cowry]] shells, half-marbles or other small undifferentiated counters that are placed in and transferred about the holes during play.

Board configurations vary among different games but also within variations of a given game; for example [[Endodoi]] is played on boards from 2×6 to 2×10. The largest are Tchouba ([[Mozambique]]) with a board of 160 (4×40) holes requiring 320 seeds, and En Gehé ([[Tanzania]]), played on longer rows with up to 50 pits (a total of 2×50=100) and using 400 seeds. The most minimalistic variants are Nano-Wari and Micro-Wari, created by the Bulgarian ethnologue Assia Popova. The Nano-Wari board has eight seeds in just two pits; Micro-Wari has a total of four seeds in four pits.

With a two-rank board, players usually are considered to control their respective sides of the board, although moves often are made into the opponent's side. With a four-rank board, players control an inner row and an outer row, and a player's seeds will remain in these closest two rows unless the opponent captures them.