The meaning of Mlabalaba…

Umlabalaba is an intriguing “mind-building” Zulu board game that is often translated as “Zulu Chess”. There are two versions of the game in Zululand involving slight differences in the board layout and the end game. The isisuthu version has 25 positions (i.e. points on the board where two lines intersect) upon which counters can be placed, whereas the isizulu version has only 24 positions.

In both games, however, each player is given 12 counters which are played alternately – one counter at a time – on any of the board positions. After all the counters have been used in this way, the counters can be moved one space at a time to new positions along the lines on the board. If by chance (in isizulu) all 24 counters are placed on the board and no counter has been captured (for which see further), then each player is required to remove one of his counters and “gift” it to his opponent. In this case, the first person to remove the counter is the one who played first.

The object of the game – like tic-tac-toe – is to form a consecutive line of three counters either vertically, or horizontally (as well as diagonally in isisuthu) both during the first phase of the game (placement), and during the second phase (movement). Each time a player forms such a line, he removes one of his opponent’s tokens from the board. The winner is the player who succeeds in capturing ten of his adversary’s tokens.