Does the 1658 French account of a game among the Sakalava of Madagascar (Fifangha) describe an ancestor of Bao, or an unrelated game too readily linked to it by later scholarship?

The 1658 account is sometimes cited as the earliest reference to Bao, but specialists are reluctant to positively identify Flacourt's game with Bao itself; the true depth of Bao's history before the earliest confirmed board (Malawi, no earlier than 1896, now in the British Museum) is unknown.