It is described by Mendoza, and more
particularly, with illustrations, by Doolittle.[1]
But Rubruquis would seem to have witnessed nearly the same process that
Polo describes. He reprehends the conjuring practices of the Nestorian
priests among the Mongols, who seem to have tried to rival the indigenous
Kams or Medicine-men. Visiting the Lady Kuktai, a Christian Queen of
Mangu Kaan, who was ill, he says: "The Nestorians were repeating certain
verses, I know not what (they said it was part of a Psalm), over two twigs
which were brought into contact in the hands of two men. The monk stood by
during the operation" (p. 326).[2] Petis de la Croix quotes from
Thevenot's travels, a similar mode of divination as much used, before a
fight, among the Barbary corsairs. Two men sit on the deck facing one
another and each holding two arrows by the points, and hitching the
notches of each pair of arrows into the other pair. Then the ship's writer
reads a certain Arabic formula, and it is pretended that whilst this goes
on, the two sets of arrows, of which one represents the Turks and the
other the Christians, struggle together in spite of the resistance of the
holders, and finally one rises over the other. This is perhaps the
divination by arrows which is prohibited in the Koran. (Sura, V. v. 92.)
It is related by Abulfeda that Mahomed found in the Kaaba an image of
Abraham with such arrows in his hand.
P. della Valle describes the same process, conducted by a Mahomedan
conjuror of Aleppo: "By his incantations he made the four points of the
arrows come together without any movement of the holders, and by the way
the points spontaneously placed themselves, obtained answers to
interrogatories."
And Mr. Jaeschke writes from Lahaul: "There are many different ways of
divination practised among the Buddhists; and that also mentioned by Marco
Polo is known to our Lama, but in a slightly different way, making use of
two arrows instead of a cane split up, wherefore this kind is called
da-mo, 'Arrow-divination.'" Indeed the practice is not extinct in India,
for in 1833 Mr. Vigne witnessed its application to detect the robber of a
government chest at Lodiana.
As regards Chinghiz's respect for the Christians there are other stories.
Abulfaragius has one about Chinghiz seeing in a dream a religious person
who promised him success. He told the dream to his wife, Aung Khan's
daughter, who said the description answered to that of the bishop who used
to visit her father. Chinghiz then inquired for a bishop among the Uighur
Christians in his camp, and they indicated Mar Denha. Chinghiz
thenceforward was milder towards the Christians, and showed them many
distinctions (p. 285). Vincent of Beauvais also speaks of Rabbanta, a
Nestorian monk, who lived in the confidence of Chinghiz's wife, daughter
of "the Christian King David or Prester John," and who used by divination
to make many revelations to the Tartars.
