Sports - Games - Music- Calendars .. On this page... . Mancala Calendars under construction

<<<Back to About Africa

.

Mancala

When you are in Africa try to see if you can pick up a Mancala board, they aren't that easy to buy within Australia. Or you could have a go at making one. It's a game designed to be able to be played at anytime with any small items, although more commonly with small pebbles or stones.

There are a number of different names for Mancala including (but not limited to) the following:

• Warri
• Ayo
• Awele
• Awari
• Ouril
• Bao

.

There are many many version of the game of Mancala - involving different sized boards, different numbers of rows and holes. The different versions have different rules for how many stones to have, and some variations to how moves are made.

.

Some websites you could look at...

• Awale i jock Mancala - website
• Mancala Games - website
• Lamu etc (gives common starting positions for some versions of Mancala) - website
• Board Game Geek - website
• Snail Mancala (a VERY amusing cartoon on-line Mancala game) - website

Calendars

Before we look at the Ethiopian calendar, it's helpful to know a little background history about calendars ...

The Babylonian and Egyptian Calendars

The first calendars, created by the Babylonians in about 4700 BC, had 360 days exactly (this is why we still divide a circle into 360 degrees).

The Egyptians had a number of versions for their calendars. One version adapted the Babylonian method giving them a calendar of 12 months of 30 days each month, but they added an extra 5 days at the end of the year to celebrate the birthdays of the gods, thus giving the calendar year exactly 365 days. The Egyptians had both solar and lunar calendars, and at one time they had both a solar and a lunar calendar in use at the same time!

The Julian Calendar

Julius Caesar changed the Egyptian calendar to the Julian calendar, which had a leap year every 4 years. This new system was much closer to the real length of a solar year (which is approximately 365.2422 days). However, as the centuries passed, the discrepancy of 0.0078 days a year added up and by 1582 the Julian calendar was 10 days out.

The Gregorian Calendar

Pope Gregory declared that the days between the 5th and 15th of October 1582 would be skipped, which caused a little mayhem, imagine the problems caused by day light saving changing over – magnified by over a week. To avoid the problems with the Julian calendar the Pope declared the Gregorian calendar, which had a leap year every 4 years except the century years (e.g. 1700, 1800, etc), however there was to be an exception to this, and there would still be a leap year in the years divisible by 400 (e.g. 1600 and 2000 - which is why we still had a leap year in 2004 even though it's one of the 'century years'). This arrangement meant that the calendar year is 365.2425 days, which is very close to the 365.2422 days. There is now a very small error of 0.0003 days every year, which is 3 days out every 10 000 years. So 10 000 years after 1582, those three days will need to be fixed, (personally I'm not too worried!).

The whole world did not immediately accept these changes declared by Pope Gregory. A few examples of when some countries changed over are... in Britain and what is now the USA, the Gregorian calendar was not used until 1752 and by then it was necessary to add 11 days to their current calendar – causing more mayhem when the 3rd became the 14th of September 1752. Japan changed over in 1873 and Russian and nearby counties in 1917, and Greece only changed over in 1923. Eritrea changed over to the Gregorian calendar following their very recent Independence.

The Gregorian Calendar system is what is currently used in Australia, and in most countries around the world.

The Gregorian Calendar system is not the calendar system used in Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian Calendar

The Ethiopian Calendar is similar to the Julian Calendar in that it has a leap year every 4 years. However, the Ethiopian Calendar is actually based on the Coptic Calendar, which is based on an even older version of Egyptian Calendars than the calendar that the Julian Calendar was based on.

The New Year (of the Ethiopian Calendar) will occur on the 11th September (of the Gregorian Calendar) for all years between 1901 to 2099 (the New Year did occur on a slightly different day before 1901 and will change again as of 2100), however, there are some years that the New Year is not on the 11th September... sometimes the Ethiopian New Year occurs on the 12 September and this happens the year before a leap year in the Gregorian Calendar.

Some examples are given below...

The Ethiopian Months

The Ethiopian months do not line up exactly with our months, and do not have the same number of days as our months do.

The Ethiopian calendar uses the ancient Egyptian model, giving them 12 months a year, each month having exactly 30 days, plus 5 days added at the end of each year (6 days added in an Ethiopian leap year). These extra 5 (or 6) days make a ‘13th month’.

For the years between 1901 and 2099 the Ethiopian months start and end as follows (reference)…

* Depending if there is a leap year, some months may start a day differently. See notes above regarding which years are affected.

<<<Back to About Africa

<<<Back to Home Page