Köçürme is an Old Turkic board game belonging to the mancala family. Mancala games are two-player, turn-based strategy games typically played with small stones, beans, seeds, or similar pieces, which are distributed among rows of holes or pits arranged in the ground, on a board, or on another playing surface.
It is attested in Maḥmūd al-Kāshgharī’s Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk. Al-Kāshgharī defines the game as follows:
Köçürme (كُجُرمَا), Köçürme oyun (كُجُرمَا اُيُن): A game also known as ondört (“fourteen”). Four lines are drawn on the ground in the shape of a fortress, within which ten “gates” are made. The game is played on these gates using hazelnuts or other similar objects.
Variants of this game continue to be played today in Kazakhstan as Toğız Qumalaq, in Kyrgyzstan as Toğuz Qorğool, and in Turkey as Mangala.
Kâşgarlı Mahmud. 1939. Divanü Lûgat-it-Türk Tercümesi. Çev. Besim Atalay.