The Mill-Game Family Around the World

One idea, many boards

Every game in this family shares one goal: get three of your pieces in a row along a line of the board. That row is a mill. In the small games, a mill simply wins. In the larger ones, each mill lets you take one of your opponent’s pieces, and the game runs until one side is too weak to go on. The board grows, the number of pieces grows, and each place that plays the game gives it its own rules and its own name.

From three pieces to twelve

The small games, Three Men’s Morris and Achi, are about forming the line at all: once every piece is down, players slide them around the grid until someone makes three in a row. Six Men’s Morris brings in the capture. Nine Men’s Morris and Morabaraba are the large games, with three phases: placing, moving, and flying once a player is down to three pieces.

Europe: Mill, Mühle and Merels

Nine Men’s Morris is the family’s best-known member in Europe. English speakers also call it Mill or Merels (sometimes Merrills), and in German it is Mühle. It is played on three nested squares joined at their midpoints, with nine pieces a side and no diagonals. Our Nine Men’s Morris rules guide walks through it with diagrams.

Southern Africa: Morabaraba

In South Africa, Lesotho and Botswana the family’s large game is Morabaraba. It takes the Nine Men’s Morris board, adds a diagonal through each set of corners, and gives each player twelve pieces. English-language references call it Twelve Men’s Morris. It is spoken about in the language of the herd: the pieces are cows (dikgomo), and the board echoes a cattle kraal seen from above.

It goes by many names: morabaraba in Sesotho and Setswana, umlabalaba or mlabalaba in isiZulu, mmela in Setswana-speaking communities, and muravava, mororova and meule elsewhere. The name Morabaraba comes from the Southern Sotho moraba-raba, “to mill” or “to go round in a circle”. Lesotho also plays Koti, on a 25-point board with a live centre point.

Morabaraba is a competitive mind sport too. The International Wargames Federation governs it internationally, with Mind Sports South Africa as the national body, and World Championships have been contested since 1997.

Shax, Achi and the wider family

Achi, from Ghana, is one of the small games: four pieces each on a nine-point grid with diagonals. Shax, from Somalia, is another relative, with its own board and rules. The family reaches much further, and each of these games has its own rules:

• Shax: Somalia
• Shisimia: Kenya
• Tsoro yemutwelve: Zimbabwe
• Char bhar: India
• Dooz: Iran
• Tapatan: Philippines
• Gurgaldaj: Mongolia

Boards from this family have been found carved into stone a long way from where the games are played today. Our about page lists the oldest finds and the sources for them.

Play the Southern African branch

This site plays Morabaraba, in its Traditional and Koti rule sets, and its European cousin Nine Men’s Morris, against the computer or online. If you know any of the larger mill games, see how Nine Men’s Morris and Morabaraba compare and you will be ready for your first game.