The Chinese Method Of Divination Comes Still Nearer To That
In The Text.
It is conducted by tossing in the air two symmetrical pieces
of wood or bamboo of a peculiar form.
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.
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