Malays (ethnic group)
The Malays also have a variant of Mancala board game known as Congkak. The game is played by moving stones, marbles, beads or shells around a wooden board consisting of twelve or more holes. Mancala is acknowledged as the oldest game in the world and can be traced its origin since Ancient Egypt.
As the game dispersed around the globe, every culture has invented its own variation including the Malays.
History of games
One of the oldest known ball games in history is the Mesoamerican ballgame ("Ōllamaliztli" in Nahuatl). "Ōllamaliztli" was played as far back as 1,400 BC and had important religious significance for the mesoamerican peoples such as the Maya and Aztec. The game evolved over time but the main goal was to keep a solid rubber ball in play by striking it with various parts of the body or with tools such as rackets. The game may have served as a proxy for warfare and also had a major religious function. Formal ballgames were held as ritual events, often featuring human sacrifice, though it was also played for leisure by children and even women.