Spar - Ghanaian Card Game
Bob
I'm a student of anthropology doing research among the Asante people
of Ghana, and some of my historical research has got me trying to
trace the roots of games apparently of European origin. I'm especially
interested in draughts, which I suspect was introduced by the Dutch,
but the evidence is scanty and it would be helpful if I could compare
the history of another game.
There is a great deal of evidence relevant to the card game known
locally as 'Spar' or 'Spa', but I can't quite see where it leads. I
haven't been able to find a similary-named game with the same rules in
my research, yet, but I'm wondering if y'all can perhaps help me.
Here's what I've got so far...
RULES OF THE GAME:
Spa is most commonly played by two players, though a four-player
version does exist. In Adwafo, it is the only card game known. Most
players I've met elsewhere in Ghana also know only this one game. It
is mostly a young men's game, played by boys as early as their early
teens, and by men into their early twenties — afrafo (sing. frani,
mixed people)— men who are not quite children, but who are also not
yet conceived of as adults in Asante society.
The deck of cards used is a standard French playing deck with the
jokers and all face cards below six discarded. These lower cards may
be appropriated by younger boys to play a somewhat amputated version
of the game. Aces are high. The dealer shuffles the deck, stopping
when his opponent says ‘Bra' (‘Come'). He then deals three cards to
his opponent, three to himself, two to his opponent, and then two to
himself, so that each player has five cards. The opponent plays first,
setting out any card he likes. The dealer is then required to lay down
a card of the same suit, or any other card if he does not have a card
of the requisite suit. Whichever player lays down the card with the
higher value in the initially chosen suit wins the right to lay down
the next card, which may be of any suit. This continues until the last
pair of cards are thrown down, at which point whoever wins the final
pair is considered the winner of the hand. An example may be of some
help.
Kwadwo deals, so Owusu gets to lay down the first card. He plays the
king of spades. Kwadwo plays the ace of spades in response, and is
thus granted the right to play the next card. He lays down the seven
of hearts. Owusu has no hearts, so he plays the eight of diamonds.
Although eight is higher than seven, he has been unable to produce a
card of the appropriate suit, so Kwadwo gets to lay down the next
card. He plays the jack of clubs. Owusu has only the ten and six of
clubs. He chooses to lay down the ten. As the jack is higher, Kwadwo
still gets to play first. He plays the nine of diamonds, and Owusu
counters with the king of diamonds. He plays his last card — the six
of clubs. Kwadwo, in turn, plays his last card — the seven of
diamonds. As Kwadwo has not been able to produce a card of a matching
suit, Owusu has won the hand.
More graphically, the order of play is as follows:
Owusu: K spades Kwadwo: A spades
Kwadwo: 7 hearts Owusu: 8 diamonds
Kwadwo: J clubs Owusu: 10 clubs
Kwadwo: 9 diamonds Owusu: K diamonds
Owusu: 6 clubs Kwadwo: 7 diamonds
Winning a hand by playing any card eight or higher earns one one
point. If a seven is played, one gains two points, and, if the winning
card is a six, one wins three points. Thus, in the above game, Owusu
won three points. Points are marked through the use of two markers —
usually stones — which start off in a position between the two
players. With each hand won, a player gets to move one stone one space
closer to himself. The game is won when a player wins a hand while
both stones sit in front of him. Thus, at the beginning of a game,
either player can win by gaining three points (whether through one,
two, or three consecutive victories). If Kwaku wins the first game on
an eight, thus gaining only one point, Boafo has to gain four points
(through two, three, or four consecutive victories) in order to win
the hand. If Kwaku has two points, meaning that both stones are
sitting in front of him, then Boafo needs to gain five points (through
two, three, four, or five consecutive wins) in order to win the game.
ETYMOLOGY:
The suits are krin (clubs), kelo (diamonds), spa (spades), and yet
(hearts). These are not meaningful terms in Twi, and are fairly
clearly cognates with a European language. Which European language is,
sadly, not too clear. Note the table below.
English clubs diamonds hearts spades
Twi krin kelo yet spa
Dutch klaveren Ruiten harten schoppen
Danish klør Ruder hjerter spar
Norwegian kløver Ruter hjerter spar
German Kreuz Karo Herz Schippen
Treff Reuten Coeur Pik
Eckstein Schoffel (Swiss)
Ecken (Swiss)
French trèfles carreaux coeurs piques
(I got most of this off of
http://www.math.bas.bg/~iad/tyalie/damapik.html.)
Clearly, the Twi suits were not derived from either Dutch or French.
German seems the most probable origin, as Karo and kelo and Herz and
yet are almost certainly cognates, and Kreuz to krin is not a far cry.
However, the root spar, from which the term spa is almost certainly
derived, occurs today only in Scandinavian languages. On the other
hand, these languages contain nothing resembling Karo, the root of
which has also made itself felt in French and Breton (kar[r]o), and
then Polish (karo), Czech (kara), Slovenian (karo), Hungarian (karo),
Romanian (caro), Serbo-Croat (kapo [karo]), Bulgarian
(кари [kari]), Greek
(καρρό [karro]), Turkish (karo), and Latvian
(kāravs [karavs]) (Derzhanski 2002). Ignoring French and Breton,
this paints a map across most of Central and much of Eastern Europe.
But there does not appear to be any area of overlap between Karo and
spar. This question is further frustrated when we note that the ranks
are known either by their English names, or by their letters, with the
exception of the ace, which is referred to as hese (with both 'e's
voiced and sounding like the 'e' in English 'let'). This seems likely
to simply be a mispronunciation of the English term 'ace'. Thus, while
it is certainly possible that at the time that Spa was brought to the
Asantes, the terms for suits had not solidified in the same way they
have today (although it seems that even now there is some hedging
going on in German), it is just as possible that the Asantes, or other
Akans who then passed the game on to the Asantes, simply picked up
suit names from different languages.
So... Do the rules of the game seem familiar to anyone? Does anyone
know of any languag or region where a term similar to Kelo is used to
refer to diamonds and something akin to spar is used to refer to
spades? I'd appreciate any help I could get on this. Much thanks in
advance.
Bob Offer-Westort
Pathawi who's not at
hotmail.com, usually, but more easily found at ureach dot com.
Tuomas T Korppi
Finland. Surprisingly, www.pagat.com does not have this game (probably
www.pagat.com/last/index.html should list games of this type.)
--
http://www.helsinki.fi/%7ekorppi/ TUOMAS
** Kanuunoita sijoitettiin ympäri planeettaa ja ne ***********
** naamioitiin puolustuslaitteiksi, jotta kukaan ei olisi ****
** epäillyt mitään. (Stanislaw Lem: Kyberias) ****************
Bob
Thanks much for the info! This is the first game I've yet heard about
that's similar to Spa. Strange, though... The Finnish terms clearly
don't seem to be related to the Twi (Ghanaian) ones, and there were
never many Finns in Ghana. Do you (or does anyone out there) know if
the game is played in the neighbouring Scandinavian countries?
Once again, Tuomas, thank you!
Bob Offer-Westort
Pat...@ureach.com