• Board
• Objective
• Play
• External Links

Kauri is played on a special board having two rows of 6 small pits and two big pits called Storehouses.  A player's side is the bottom row of small pits and the player's storehouse is on the right side.

At the beginning of the game 5 seeds and 1 cowrie are placed in each small pit.

A player wins the game if he accumulates more seeds in his own storehouse than his opponent.

If both players have accumulated the same number of seeds, the game continues until one player can't move.  His opponent is then declared the winner of the game.  Draws are therefore not possible.

Players take turns sowing their seeds and cowries.  Sowing is performed in the following way

• A player picks all seeds and cowries up from one of the pits on his side that contains at least one cowrie.
• Starting from the next pit in the counter-clockwise direction, the player drops one of the taken seeds in each pit (skipping the storehouses).  When the player finishes sowing the seeds he continues sowing the cowries.

Below is an example of a sowing:

A player takes five seeds and two cowries
from his pit and sows them counter-clockwise.

• If during the sowing a player's cowrie is dropped into a pit on the opponent's side that has no cowries then all seeds from that pit are captured and placed in the player's storehouse.  The dropped cowrie remains on the board.

A player takes seven seeds and one cowrie
from his pit and sows them counter-clockwise.
The sown cowrie is dropped on the opponent's side
into a pit with no cowries and as a result all seeds
from that pit are captured and moved to the player's
storehouse.  The sown cowrie remains on the board:

• If during the sowing a player's seed  is dropped into a pit on the opponent's side that contains only cowries then this seed is considered to be captured by the opponent and is placed in the opponent's storehouse.  The cowries remain on the board.

A player takes five seeds and one cowrie
from his pit and sows them counter-clockwise.
One of the seeds is dropped on the opponent's side
into a pit that contains only cowries and as a result
this seed  is considered to be captured by the opponent
and is moved to the opponent's storehouse.
The cowrie remains on the board:

• A player must move if he can.  If a player has no cowries on his side of the board then he must pass until he can move again.

• Kauri history and rules on Wikinfo.org.