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.
Bao (game)
As with most traditional mancalas, precise historical information on the origins and diffusion of Bao is missing. Early accounts and archaeological findings are arguable as there are many games that are similar to Bao in both equipment and rules. For example, a 1658 account by French governor Étienne de Flacourt about a game played by the Sakalava people in northwestern Madagascar is sometimes quoted as the earliest reference to Bao, but scholars are more cautious about identifying Flacourt's game with Bao proper. The study of archaeological findings of boards usually relies on the assumption that boards having a square hole in a certain position (that of the "nyumba", see below) are associated to Bao, as it is the only known mancala to have such feature. Nevertheless, as traditional boards are made of wood, ancient evidence of the game of Bao is unlikely to be found. As of today, the oldest Bao board is supposed to be one from Malawi, exposed at the British Museum, and dating back to no earlier than 1896. One of the first written accounts of Bao as played in the Swahili world is due to British orientalist Thomas Hyde, who saw it played in 1658 in Anjouan (Comoros).