EL ZALE: The game, the rules, the tableboard, the players...
Ricardo Campanero
HISTORY
In 1779 Ricardo Campanero (see biography) headed an expedition to the African continent with the single object to study the behavior of SIMBA tribes. What it called the attention more to him was how they arranged not to become bored in days of hunting while they waited for its prey.
They played a peculiar game in which they used three great woods (modality KUKUJAMA) or two (AKUKUJAMA). The game was based on making rotational turns with the woods (called mapes) until leaving them crossed, first of the players that were able to cross his wood over the one of the opposite won the game.
Campanero was hypnotized by that exciting game and he hesitated in devising one more a more comfortable way to play: it made a tableboard with drawn vertices, four hemispheres in the corners and two small woods of different color (the SIMPLE ZALE).
Padre Anselmo
Soon the game began to spread itself by Spain and at 1812 around all Europe. It was a fashionable game in the high European society. But professional players would not appear until 1895 when a gaditan priest, Anselmo Father, decided to add the central sphere to tableboard (the GREATER ZALE).
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Ricardo Campanero
