Description

This would appear to be a traditional two player abstract strategy game from Africa.

It was well enough known in the Ivory Coast for that country to issue a set of two postage stamps featuring the game on 11 August 1984 [SG 810-811 / Scott 720-721; designed by Didier / Edila]. Curiously, however, no other information seems to be available on it except from these stamps, and it is not mentioned in any of the major games books in my possession, including that by L'Hôte, who is usually a good source for games of the Francophone world.

It is played by two people, on a board similar to that of Nine men's Morris, that is to say, there are 24 playing spaces arranged on the corners and mid-points of the edges of three concentric squares. However, no diagonals are marked, and the spaces consists of holes, into which the players insert black and white sticks. One of the stamps shows Eklan being played on an apparently traditional board fashioned into a small table, similar to those used in quality Go or Mancala sets. The dimensions I give below have been estimated from those pictures (the depth being the approximate height of the illustrated table).

The board is shown as having a narrow raised 'lip' around its edges, except at open at the corners. The part of the board between this lip and the outermost set of eight holes is coloured beige, and the regions within it are respectively coloured white, green, and - at the centre - yellow. Presumably these details are merely decorative. The sticks would seem to protrude about 6 centimetres out from their holes, and the white ones slant towards one player, while the black ones slant towards his opponent who sits opposite.

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