This is an essay by John Pemberton III (Professor of Religion, Emeritus, at Amherst College) presented on the website of the Metroplolitan Museum of Art (MET) of New-York                                   back to summary of africart.net

Rituals of divination are found throughout sub-Saharan African cultures, from west, central, and east Africa and the Sudan to South Africa and Madagascar (1). Sharing the universal concern for human suffering, Africa's peoples have developed many such rituals to deal with a variety of difficult conditions: bodily affliction and dying; social conflict; the seemingly arbitrary destructive forces of nature; an individual's uncertainty, ignorance, and moral perplexity in making decisions that will affect his or her future or that of an entire community. They also use rituals of divination to discover a context of meaning for their lives and, sometimes, to discern a personal destiny.

Africa's peoples are not alone in employing rituals of divination. The throwing of coins or sticks, resulting in a pattern or configuration catalogued and interpreted in the Ching (Book of Changes), has its origins in China during the twelfth century B.C. or earlier; this method of divination is still employed today by many people in Asia, Europe, and the United States to help them understand the significance of their experiences and to obtain guidance for the future. Astrology —interpreting the lives of individuals and predicting events according to the changing configurations of the sun, moon, planets, and stars— flourished in ancient Near Eastern, Hellenistic, and Asian cultures, underwent a revival in Europe during the Renaissance, and remains popular today in many societies. Shamanism was once an important part of the religious life of Northwest American Indians and still is among Tibetan Buddhists. Though severely criticized by Jewish, Christian, and Islamic authorities, the divination rituals of prophecy, selecting random passages from Scripture or Psalter as augury, casting lots, and speaking in tongues were widely practiced and continue to flourish among certain groups. Whatever the form, all divinatory practices reveal the human quest for a larger context of meaning, a means by which to understand and respond to the many faces of suffering and uncertainty. Inherent in all these practices is the assumption —or faith— "that the world order in its totality is, could, and should be a meaningful cosmos" (2).

For most sub-Saharan African peoples, divination rites are an essential part of daily life. An individual casts pieces of a kola nut or addresses questions to a friction oracle in the morning in order to determine what to do to make his or her way successfully through the day; a family consults a diviner to learn why death is repeatedly taking a mother's newborn children or to know the will of the ancestors for resolving conflicts within the household; a king seeks the knowledge of his diviners to make his position of authority secure. Diviners are also the agents of memory, the preservers of a people's history, or, in times of crisis, the creators of a "past" or a "vision" by which the living may endure. A person's status is often determined by what is revealed in rites of divination at the time of birth, coming of age, marriage, investiture to priestly or royal office, death, and other critical events.

The number and diversity of divination rites in Africa are enormous, varying in form among ethnic groups and even within the cultural life of a particular people. Among the Dogon peoples of the Bandiagara escarpment in Mali, village elders study fox tracks that cut across the pattern of squares they have inscribed in a field outside their village for indications of future events, especially such fundamental matters as births, marriages, harvests, and deaths (3). The Azande, who live in the southern Sudan and the northern portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C., formerly Zaire), employ the poison oracle (benge) to address serious questions such as accusations of committing adultery or practicing sorcery, and use the friction oracle (iwa) to find out if witchcraft is being practiced against them or to determine whether to proceed with a journey (4). In the eastern part of the D.R.C., a friction oracle is also used by the Luba and Songye peoples (5). Among the Luba the rite is known as kashekesheke, and the friction device is called kakishi (the Songye equivalent of which is katatora), a small, carved wooden object held jointly by client and diviner and whose movements provide answers to the client's questions. The Ding, Kuba, Lele, Luluwa, and Wongo in the central areas of the D.R.C. use the itombwa, often in the form of a beautifully carved image of an animal (most commonly a crocodile, bush pig, or dog), the back of which is rubbed with a small handheld bulbous piece of wood; the movements of the latter provide "yes" or "no" answers to questions asked by a suppliant through the diviner (6). Sometimes, the jaw of a crocodile is substituted for the itombwa.

Among the Luba and Songye there is also a more elaborate form of divination, featuring the sacred gourd (mboko), in which the diviner tumbles a variety of natural and manufactured objects and then interprets the configuration formed by the objects that end up on top (7). Spirit possession, which is usually associated with this form of divination, appears to be of even greater importance among the Yaka (who live in the southwestern part of the D.R.C.) than among the Luba or the Songye (8). The Chokwe of Angola employ basket divination - a comparable method of interpreting the pattern formed among a group of objects -and spirit possession. In one Chokwe form of divination involving spirit possession, the reflective surface of water or a mirror enables the diviner to see the source of a client's affliction (9).

Among the Lobi, who live in the southern part of Burkina Faso, a diviner sits next to his client and places small sculpted figures (bateba) on the ground in front of them (10). The bateba serve as witnesses to the divination, in which diviner and client join hands and address questions to the figures; the rising or falling motion of their clasped hands indicates positive or negative responses from the spirits (thila) represented in the sculptures. In northern Côte d'Ivoire, a similar rite is performed by Senufo female diviners known as Sandobele (11), who use male and female sculpted figures to communicate with the powerful bush spirits and/or ancestors (madebele). In Banyang villages in Cameroon, a form of divination rarely seen today is the Basinjom masquerade, in which an individual wearing a wild, otherworldly mask and costume is endowed with clairvoyant powers capable of identifying people who have powers of witchcraft.

Along the upper west coast of Africa, there are several types of divination that rely on "sixteen signs." Ifa divination among the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria and its probable derivative, Fa, among the Fon of the Republic of Benin, has been the most fully studied of these (12). It was brought to the Americas during the mid to late eighteenth century, at the height of the slave trade. The casting of sixteen palm nuts or cowrie shells continues to be widely practiced today by Caribbean and Brazilian people of West African descent in New York and other metropolitan centers in the United States, and is therefore the best known of African divination systems. The "sixteen signs" type of divination may have its origins in Islamic sand writing (khatt ar-raml), and its traces are found not only in Ifa and Fa but also in divination systems in the Mande cultural zone in Mali, in Madagascar, and among the Shona in southern Africa (13). While all the different versions of the "sixteen signs" have certain basic elements in common, the particular interpretation of the signs is almost entirely determined by the cultural values, oral traditions, and social experiences of the people who practice the divination rite.

Two other forms of divination involving the consultation of signs are mouse divination, employed by the Baule and Guro of Côte d'Ivoire (14), and spider divination, which is prevalent among the peoples of Cameroon (15). Here, the signs are not the result of human actions but are formed through the random movements of a mouse or a spider —the mouse scampering over bats
'or birds' bones or sticks that a diviner has laid out parallel to one another, and the spider emerging from its nest in a hole in the ground and dislodging small, distinctively shaped cards that have been cut out of the rigid leaves of the "African plum" tree and placed neatly around the
hole— in each case creating new configurations. These signs too must be interpreted by a diviner, one capable of "reading" the patterns of bones or leaves. While the procedure in every instance may seem random or accidental, the signs that appear are considered not at all random-and incapable of human manipulation-since they are directed by spiritual powers who communicate to the living by this means.

In all these societies, there is more than one system of divination. In addition to mouse divination, the Baule have the ritual of the "trance dancers," in which certain individuals-after being "chosen" by a nature spirit (asye usu) and a deity known as Mbra and trained in the performance of trance dancing-identify the causes of public and private misfortunes and then recommend solutions. As Susan Vogel has noted, "The largest, oldest, and most elaborate Baule figure sculptures are made as the loci for gods and spirits that possess their human partners and send messages through them in trance states" (16). Among the Tabwa, in the southeastern sector of the D.R.C., the Luba friction oracle (kashekesheke) is employed; and in extreme cases, shamans (tulunga) are called on, for they know and can control the powers of sorcery (17). In neighboring Kenya, prophets (iloibonok) among the Samburu and Maasai have the power to "see" past, present, and future by using containers (enkidong)-usually gourds-filled with divination objects, and they also have the ability to cure misfortunes and practice sorcery using special substances (entasim). Though sought out for protection, the tulunga and the iloibonok are often feared and mistrusted and therefore occupy an ambiguous status in society (18). In addition to friction oracles of the itombwa type, nkisi figures and certain masks among several Kongo peoples have divinatory status, since they confer on those who utilize them the power to see hidden things (19). All these divination systems are largely concerned with understanding the present in terms of the past-near or distant-and its implications for the immediate future, as well as with healing or protection against witchcraft and sorcery. However, divination among the Dogon of the western Sudan and the Malagasy of Madagascar addresses questions pertaining to the future. The Malagasy want to know about matters of destiny and how what one does in the present determines what will occur, but whereas Dogon elders study fox tracks across patterns inscribed in the sand, the Malagasy often employ written texts and astrological calculations (20).

Faced with the variety of divination rites, one might be tempted to try to create a typology that would place them in some coherent scheme. Plato distinguished between two types of divination: augury and prophecy (21)--a distinction that many scholars have adopted and that has the virtue of simplicity but often leads to oversimplified reductions that do little to help one understand divination in the lives of particular peoples. E. M. Zuesse distinguishes among "intuitive divination," in which the diviner spontaneously "sees" or "knows" reality or the future; "possession divination," in which spiritual beings are said to communicate through intermediary agents; and "wisdom divination," in which the diviner decodes seemingly random patterns found in nature (22). His discussion makes helpful distinctions and recognizes subtypes within each of the major categories, thereby seeming to provide a basis for pursuing cross-cultural studies. However, as with all typological analyses, it removes one from the particular, from life situations, from the cultural world and idiosyncratic experience of people; indeed, Zuesse acknowledges that a specific type may often be combined with other types and/or be understood in a markedly different way in varying cultural contexts.

Rather than impose typological categories or other abstractions on the living, perhaps the best way to provide a basic understanding of divination among the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa is to limit the discussion to a few specific peoples and to focus on the relationship between their cosmologies and their systems of divination and on the role of ritual artifacts in the lives of diviner and client. In the brief survey that follows —describing and analyzing divination practices among the Azande, Luba and Songye, Yaka, Yoruba, and Malagasy— an attempt has been made to convey the distinctiveness of thought and ritual life of peoples geographically separated, but whose religious and aesthetic responses to human suffering and the quest for meaning have much in common. Keep in mind, however, that Africa's peoples have never lived in isolated, tightly structured cultural worlds and have always maintained contact with one another through trade, marriage, and warfare. They have constantly experienced change over time due to the forces of nature, social and political circumstances, and technological innovation, and they continue to do so. As people move by choice or necessity, their ideas, practices, and objects move with them, are adapted and/or adopted, or are abandoned within their new cultural context. Also keep in mind that the information presented here and its interpretation —in common with the varying approaches of numerous scholars of African systems of divination— must rely on theoretical systems reflecting Western conceptual frameworks for understanding African and other non-Western cultures.

Part 1: Azande

It is appropriate that we begin our survey with the Azande of the southern Sudan and the northeastern region of the D.R.C., since their divination practices are the first in sub-Saharan Africa to have been thoroughly examined and written about, in E. E. Evans-Pritchard's masterful study Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande, published in 1937. For decades it remained the only extensive and serious discussion of divination as practiced by sub-Saharan African peoples. Evans-Pritchard established the norms by which future students would address the subject, including the premise that divination is a form of inquiry and communication that has to be taken seriously, if one is to understand the worldviews of the Azande and other African peoples. For them, divination is a method of harnessing spirit forces to obtain guidance in dealing with ill will, envy, suspicion, and other universally human feelings and behaviors.

The Azande dwell in savanna forest, where they cultivate the soil, raising a variety of plants, and also hunt and fish. They live in relatively small villages that are linked through identification with larger areas presided over by princes within what was once a larger kingdom prior to the colonial period. Their world is one of interaction with kinsmen, neighboring peoples, and ancestral spirits and other spiritual powers —the latter distinguishable from, but participating in, a primal Spirit that pervades the universe of human experience in all its diversity. Evans-Pritchard's study established that witchcraft— the manipulation of matter and words as agents of demonic powers—is an inextricable part of Azande life. An often-quoted passage from that study provides a context for understanding witchcraft and oracle among the Azande:

As Evans-Pritchard observed, the Azande fully understand that termites and the granary's own weight caused the structure to collapse, and that on a hot day people might well be sitting beneath it and be hurt or killed. One could say that it was a coincidence of events, "two chains of causation intersected at a certain time and in a certain place." For the Azande, the question remains: why these people at this moment at this place? The question is not simply one of "how," but of "why"; and the Azande answer is that "it is due to witchcraft" (24). The Azande understand multiple causality and do not blame witchcraft as the cause of an event when it is evidently a transgression of social norms (such as adultery) or a violation of customary law (such as theft) (25), but they do regard witchcraft as an ordinary event in their lives. Indeed, it is considered hereditary, and no one appears to be spared the power —or at least the possibility— of being a witch. At times, the accused may be unaware of having used such powers.

In Azande life and thought, oracles and other divination practices are closely linked with witchcraft. When misfortune occurs —such as a granary falling on a group of people, or a failure in the hunt, or the onset of a physical ailment— an oracle is used to find out whether witchcraft is involved. In this respect, divination is a means of understanding present circumstances in connection with past events, especially in terms of the ways people are affected by those events. However, divination is also concerned with future possibilities—for example, whether one should fear the intrusion of witchcraft on a journey that one plans to take, or whether the woman one wishes to marry will die early in life due to the power of a witch.

Given the Azande people's pervasive anxiety about witchcraft and its varied manifestations, it is not surprising that they have developed numerous different forms of divination. The most powerful and accurate form is the poison oracle (benge, a term that also refers to the poison itself). This rite is performed outside the village, in the bush —untamed wilderness— with the participation of those who are actively involved in the consultation or are consulted as witnesses to it. A man without any special standing in the community, if he knows the required procedures and has respected the prohibitions against certain kinds of behavior —such as refraining from sexual intercourse for several days or abstaining from eating forbidden food, especially elephant meat— is selected to administer poison to a young chicken. After the group arrives at the location chosen for the divination rite, the suppliant addresses a question to the benge, and the chicken is given the poison. The phrasing of the question is crucial; it must be neither too vague nor too specific. The benge responds through the action of the poison: if the chicken is still alive, then the suppliant's suspicions may be allayed; but if the chicken dies, those suspicions are confirmed. After the inquiry and response, the poison is administered to another chicken to learn if the first response was accurate. Resolution of the suppliant's problem may require a series of questions and several chickens. As in Western modes of "objective" inquiry, doubt is part of the process of divinatory inquiry for the Azande. Due to the costs, time, and people involved, benge is used only for the most serious circumstances, such as the death of a family member, illness, barrenness, or accusations of adultery.

Another form of divination employed by the Azande is the termite oracle (dakpa), in which termites are offered branches from two species of tree —dakpa and kpoyo— and responses to questions are determined by which type of tree branches the termites choose to
eat (26). Sometimes both will be eaten, and this response also has a particular significance. As with the benge oracle, the questions put to dakpa are often concerned with the possibility of witchcraft being used against one in the course of an enterprise, such as building a house or clearing a plot of ground for seed; and the questioning can refer to specific people or families one suspects of harboring ill will. When the responses suggest that the problem is serious, then benge will be employed in order to confirm what one has learned from dakpa.

The most widely used form of divination is the friction oracle iwa) (27). The poison oracle entails the expense of owning and preserving the rare substance benge, and the termite oracle takes time and requires a particular setting —a termite mound— in which to be performed. Iwa, however, is valued for being easy to use and readily available when one needs to ask questions and make decisions. It is not considered as reliable as the other oracles, which involve independent agents and are less prone to manipulation, but it is quickly accessible and its responses may subsequently be confirmed by benge.

A person may carve and prepare his or her own friction board. The Azande, though not a people noted for their visual arts, have a reputation as excellent smiths, potters, and carvers of domestic objects, and in the past were noted for their beautiful carved harp-lutes (28). The iwa is often made in striking geometric shapes. It consists of "male" and "female" parts: the lower part, shaped somewhat like a three-legged stool with one leg extended, on which a person places a foot to hold the instrument in place; and an upper part, a lidlike object that serves as the rubbing implement (fig. 1). Once the iwa is carved, preparing it is of the utmost importance. The suppliant —who must respect the same ritual prohibitions stipulated for consulting benge— scores the rubbing surfaces with a hot iron, rubs the carved areas with the juices of various plants, hides it under several inches of soil on a well-trodden path for several days, and then applies leaf and root preparations to the rubbing areas. While the friction oracle is in use, the rubbing implement is regularly dipped in a gourd of water.

When a question is addressed to the oracle —for example, inquiring about the cause of a sudden illness or if a journey should be avoided because of witchcraft— the movement of the rubbing implement indicates a positive or negative response. This is determined by whether it moves with ease or with difficulty —for example, sticking to the surface of the lower, female portion— or simply moves in a noncommittal circular fashion. As with the poison and termite oracles, a second, confirmatory test is usually made. The advantage of the iwa is that it is easy to use in public and can be consulted any time the need arises, such as to solve a vexing problem that is diverting attention from other matters.

Part 2: Luba and Songye

Moving from the Azande to the Luba in the eastern sector of the D.R.C. is to enter what could almost be another world. It is an area of forests and rivers; and the Luba, though divided into numerous subgroups, have a historical awareness as a people that seems to be absent among the Azande. The latter appear to live their lives focused on the here and now, with past and future regarded as an extension of the present. This perception may be very much the result of Evans-Pritchard's approach to ethnographic studies, developed when anthropology was concerned with social systems and paid slight attention to a people's historical sensibilities. By the time Mary Nooter Roberts and Allen Roberts pursued their studies among the Luba in the 1980s, there was an understanding of the importance of memory among a people, a vital sense of history. Their research for the exhibition "Memory: Luba Art and the Making of History" (1996) is testimony to the change in anthropological studies, as well as to an appreciation for the acute historical self-awareness of the Luba.

The heartland of the Luba people is in what is known as the Upemba Depression, in the eastern part of the D.R.C. The research of archaeologists clearly indicates that it was occupied along numerous rivers as early as the seventh century A.D. and that there was extensive trading in the region by the seventeenth century. Evidence from grave sites, dating from between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, reveals that some degree of social stratification had developed (29).

Oral traditions provide a narrative that associates the origins of the Luba with the establishment of a sacred kingdom. A hunter prince from the east, Mbidi Kiluwe, came to the region and sired a son, Kalala Ilunga, whose care he entrusted to Mijibu wa Kalenga, the first spirit medium. In an epic struggle after Mbidi's death, Kalala defeated his maternal uncle, the tyrant Nkongolo Mwamba, and established a royal court at Manza (which in precolonial times was an important iron-producing district) (30). It was Mijibu's counsel that saved Kalala's life and was the basis of his success in instituting the enlightened form of leadership introduced by his father. Thus, it is from Mijibu that the royal Bilumbu diviners derive their authority, an authority that is essential to, and perhaps the warrant for, Luba sacred kingship (31). The third principal branch of Luba royal culture is the Mbudye association. They are "men of memory," who, through rituals entailing spirit possession, are the repository of the precepts and principles believed to have been handed down by Mbidi, Kalala's father (32). Through the ritual use of lukasa memory boards, it is their task to "teach and encode an Ôofficial' history of the Luba state, while at the same time subverting historical absolutism by allowing for transmutation and refabulation with every narrative telling, from one political arena to the next" (33). Such is their authority that it is the Mbudye association that initiates the king and royal Bilumbu diviners into their official political roles. Bilumbu diviners must also master the teachings of the lukasa memory board, for they too are "men of memory." Thus, there is a remarkable interweaving of roles and authority in Luba political life.

Like Mijibu, contemporary Luba royal mediums possess an esoteric knowledge and an ability to bring their knowledge to bear upon the concerns of the present. Bilumbu diviners provide judicial expertise and counsel on war, sorcery, and renewal rites, and assist in the adjudication of conflicts within the realm. Their authority lies in their power as mediums between the realm of the spirits and humans, their ability to be "grasped" (kukwata) —that is, seized by a spirit, which involves "stopping time" and seeing quickly and clearly "the problem amid the 'noise' of lived reality" (34). Spirit possession is induced not by chemical substances but through percussive instruments, such as a rattle or hand gong played by the diviner's wife or husband (women may also be royal diviners) (35), and through the diviner's chants. The combined sounds provide the stimulus for awakening the diviner's spirit to divination. Once possessed by the spirit, the diviner decorates his or her own body with chalk designs and adorns him/herself with necklaces and beautifully colored headbands of beads and fur, the patterns of the beads signifying the presence and power of the spirit. Animal skins hang from the diviner's waist. When possessed, the diviner "talks, acts, and thinks" as —and, indeed, assumes the identity of— his/her "consulting spirit" (36). When a male diviner conducts a divination ritual, his wife will sit at his right and a sculpture of a seated or kneeling female figure holding a bowl will be placed on his left (fig. 2). The carving represents the wife of the diviner's possessing spirit, for among the Luba, women are regarded as vessels of spiritual power.

A consultation proceeds with concerns addressed to the diviner by the suppliants. The diviner in turn speaks to his/her spiritual consultant while shaking an mboko —a covered gourd filled with various items: animal bones, dried beetles, birds' beaks and claws, shells, seeds, seed pods, twigs, caddis-fly cases, beads, tiny iron replicas of tools, and small, carved wood figurines in various postures covered with chalk. It is an extraordinary assemblage of natural and manufactured materials.
When the diviner opens the lid, he/she interprets the configuration of objects that have ended up on top. They provide what Roberts and Roberts refer to as "organizing images," which lead the diviner to "a hypothesis concerning the client's difficulty. The process is repeated again and again until a relatively clear understanding of the problem has been formulated" (37). The small wood carvings may have relatively fixed meanings, but as with most symbols, they and all the other objects are multireferential. It is in the association of objects that meaning is to be discerned. As Victor Turner observed regarding basket divination among the Ndembu people of northwestern Zambia —who practice a form similar to Luba mboko divination— the diviner's skill is in adapting his/her general interpretation of the objects to the given circumstances of the client(s) (38).

The form of Luba divination called kashekesheke, which is said to be from before the time of Luba kingship and thus older than spirit possession, provides the ritual context for the creation of small and often exquisitely carved friction devices called kakishi; similar friction oracles, called katatora, are employed by the Songye, a neighboring people to the northeast of the Luba. The devices, in styles ranging from highly representational to abstract, are rarely more than six inches high, have an open body for the insertion of the fingers of client and diviner, and are adorned with a carving of a beautifully coiffured woman's head. It is a form of divination that does not entail spirit mediumship or esoteric knowledge. Rather, in its simplicity of ritual action it is a means for addressing ancestral spirits when an individual is faced with a personal crisis or great uncertainty regarding a future course of action. In this respect, it is similar to the Azande's use of iwa.

Kashekesheke is performed by both diviner and client. Once the diviner (usually a woman) has prepared the friction device with the juices of certain plants and uttered words to invoke the spirits, the kakishi is placed on a woven mat on the ground between the diviner and client. The suppliant addresses his or her question to the kakishi, and then diviner and client insert their first two fingers into the space that constitutes the body of the device. The kakishi moves in various patterns, which signify "yes" or "no" answers or no answer at all (fig. 3). The raspy sound of its movement on the woven mat is possibly the origin of the name of the divination procedure (39).

The friction devices known as itombwa, used by the Ding, Kuba, Lele, Luluwa, and Wongo peoples to the west of the Luba, often take the form of animal figures, their backs forming the rubbing surface. The animals, such as dogs and bush pigs, are associated with hunting prey or rooting out a plant, thus symbolizing a diviner's quest for knowledge and insight. Other itombwa merge anthropomorphic and zoomorphic elements, combining an animal's body with a human head, or even depict a human body, which functions as the friction device.

Part 3: Yaka

The Yaka people, who number about 250,000, exist in a political and cultural borderland in the southwestern region of the D.R.C. They live in village groupings of patrilineages, although the northern Yaka recognize descent through the matrilineal line as well. Their land possesses few natural riches; technological development has passed them by; and their young people often leave to go to the capital city of Kinshasa in the hope of finding employment and a better life. René Devisch has written extensively and with great insight on Yaka social institutions and on spirit mediumship, which lies at the heart of Yaka divination (40).

Devisch points out that "while the political leader, in consensus with a council of elders or customary judges, can arbitrate in disputes where there is a common rule, the Yaka diviner draws on clairvoyance and can point with authority to the complex intertwinement of social, moral, and physical onset of sickness, ill luck, or death" (41). As with the Azande and other peoples of Africa, the Yaka approach problems of sickness and family conflict in terms of a search for a cause, and there are explanations and responses available through common sense, traditional medicinal knowledge, and social memory. However, such solutions to problems are often not adequate in themselves, especially when the problems persist or when the question is why someone has died. Therefore, they use divination to probe further for a larger context of meaning, although such an inquiry is not necessarily their original goal.

In preparation for a divination session, the representatives of the interested groups—for example, two families—will meet with the diviner, who may be male or female, to test his or her divinatory powers, giving no information about the problem. If the matter is very serious, they will seek out a diviner a day or more distant from their village. They must be convinced that the diviner possesses clairvoyance, which is demonstrated by the diviner declaring that they have come as clients and indicating that he/she knows why they have come (42). Then the diviner enters a trancelike state, in which he/she discourses on the complexities of kinship relations and the Yaka code of social behavior, discussing problems such as failing to keep one's obligations to matrilineal ancestors and the consequences that such transgressions might create for living relatives. While speaking, the diviner pays close attention to the clients' reactions, for clues to what is troubling them—nods of the head or murmurs of assent or denial at various statements he/she makes. Through these clues, the diviner begins to discern the problem that has brought them there. In the case of a death or some other extreme problem, they will present the diviner with an object that has been in close contact with the deceased or afflicted person.

Much like a hunting dog that pursues its quarry, the diviner sniffs the object. Knowledge gained through divination entails not only the senses of sight, sound, and touch, but the discriminating capacities of the olfactory sense as well (43). Thus, the action of "sniffing out" information is not only metaphorical—it is prompted by the diviner's heightened physical sensibilities. At night the diviner places the object next to his/her ear and, while asleep, receives the message it conveys in dreamlike images. The next day, he/she incorporates the images into a staccato commentary accompanied by rhythmic tapping on a wooden slitdrum (n-kookwa Ngoombu, fig 4). The diviner weaves metaphors from his/her dreams together with references to problems of kinship relations and the norms by which members of the community must live. Throughout, he/she listens attentively to the responses of those who have come for help, then presses them to react to what he has been saying and speak among themselves. The diviner's insights help them to see their situation in a new light, to disentangle the threads of conflict by turning their thinking to the fundamental norms of Yaka society, requiring and enabling them to come to terms with the extent to which these norms have or have not been maintained.

Unlike Turner, who interprets divination among the Ndembu people of northwestern Zambia in terms of the pragmatics of social transformation and as a multivocal and theatrical drama (44), Devisch approaches Yaka divination as an "event-in-the-making," a "process of reoriginating," a "birthing process" in its ongoing development. Oracular discourse "plunges one's world of speech back into its deepest springs of life" (45). Drawing on psychoanalytic studies as well as recent feminist critiques of anthropological inquiries, he interprets the diviner's slitdrum, with its uterine body and phallic head, as a visual expression of the primordial oneness of life, even as a representation of the womb. According to Devisch, as a ritual artifact, it

Thus, the Yaka diviner is one who has passed through a process of rebirth. This begins with the onset of excited speech, often sounding clairvoyant, and with erratic behavior due to having been possessed by a deceased diviner in the matrilineal line (n-kooku). Such an abnormal condition identifies an individual (male or female) as a potential diviner and attracts the attention of a senior diviner, who brings the candidate under his or her tutelage in a series of initiation rituals. Initiation begins with seclusion in a specially constructed house for an extended period of time, and includes drinking purgatives, eating special foods, breaking out of the house as a chick breaks through the shell of an egg, being taken into the bush, and returning on the shoulders of young men to the sound of slitdrums. The initiate bites a chicken's head off, clutching it in his/her teeth while being led back to the village. The climax in the initiatory rite comes when, to a chorus of slitdrums, the initiate behaves like an otter-shrew, digging a tunnel in the earth from which he/she reemerges through another hole dug by the senior diviner. The initiate is now prepared to accomplish the task with which he/she has been charged: to bring suppliants in contact with the primordial womb of the world (ngoombu) and "to effect a transition between the ngoombu . . . and the domain of language and culture" (47).

Part 4: Yoruba

There are between 15 million and 20 million Yoruba in southwestern Nigeria and the neighboring Republic of Benin. Their origins may be traced to the ninth century A.D (48). From the beginning, Yoruba culture has been characterized by an urban lifestyle and a political system of sacred rulers. By the twelfth to the fifteenth century, the political/cultural position of the Yoruba city of Ile-Ife had developed to a point where an artistry of extraordinary technical skill and imagination created the famous Ife bronze and terracotta sculptures, and there were other Yoruba artistic centers at Esie in the northeast and Owo in the southeast. By the seventeenth century, Oyo, a city in the north-central Yoruba region, was emerging as a significant political power that over the next century would establish itself as the center of an empire.

Ifa divination —which, as noted previously, is probably the best known of sub-Saharan African systems of divination outside the continent— is widely practiced among the Yoruba. In contrast to forms of divination in central Africa that employ spirit mediumship, Ifa divination does not rely on a person having oracular powers but rather on a system of signs that must be interpreted by a diviner, who is an Ifa priest (baba-lawo, literally "father of secrets"). Nevertheless, the concerns that a babalawo seeks to address are the same as those faced by Luba, Yaka, and other diviners of central Africa.

The Yoruba conceptualize the universe in terms of two halves of a closed calabash. These represent the realm of living beings (aye), comprising all humans, animals, and plants, and the realm of spiritual powers (orun), which includes the 401 deities (orisa) (49) and the ancestors (ara orun, literally "the living dead"), but there is no metaphysical notion of a "beyond," as there is in Greek philosophy or Christian theology. Reference is made to orisa Olodumare, who is without shrine, priesthood, or followers and yet is acknowledged as the "High God." It would appear that Olodumare is an expression of the unity and integrity of their universe, despite all its diversity and the existence of malevolent powers. In this respect, Yoruba cosmology is similar to that of the peoples of central Africa, though organized quite differently. The Yoruba universe consists of numerous powers that make claims on an individual. There are not only other people in one's family, town, and region, as well as foreigners, with whom one must dea l—there are powers not readily seen, such as ancestors, deities, nature spirits, and also the powers of death, disease, and witchcraft (the work of ajogun, "malevolent spirits"). The Yoruba employ the word ase to refer to the intrinsic "power" by which a person or thing is what it is— the component of a person's or thing's nature that represents its inherent authority, stemming from his, her, or its character, position, or function. Woman has her ase and man has his. Each orisa has her or his ase, and so too do the ancestors. Rulers (oba) have their ase, as do priests. Animals, forests, rivers, rain, lightning all have ase. Thus, in the Yoruba universe, ase is the ground of being, the life force, the warrant for existence in all its manifestations.

The essential concern of every individual is to make one's way prosperously through life, drawing on the ase of gods, ancestors, parents, and nature to enable one to fully realize the personal destiny (ori inu) that he or she chose before coming into the world (aye). The means of achieving this is Ifa divination, which is based on the interpretation of signs known as odu Ifa. These are related to the Odu Ifa, a vast body of oral literature in prose and poetry that contains the wisdom of the Yoruba. There are sixteen principal Odu, each with its identifying sign and name and consisting of sixteen subordinate Odu, each with its sign and name, making a total of 256 Odu. There are also 256 odu signs, each associated with one of the 256 Odu subsections and its particular story about the lives of gods, humans, and animals. The subsections are ranked in importance, a ranking said to have been determined by the order in which the Odu —which came from orun and are regarded as orisa— arrived in aye and became known among humans.

Wande Abimbola, the second-ranking priest of Ifa in Ile-Ife and former vice chancellor of the University of Ife, has written extensively on the training of Ifa priests and on the Odu Ifa (50). A youth who shows intellectual imagination at an early age will be regarded as a candidate for training to be a babalawo, especially if divination in a rite known as Imori ("knowing the head [ori]"), performed when he was a small child, revealed that he was a "child of Ifa." The youth will live with a local priest of Ifa, learning ritual procedures, memorizing passages from the Odu Ifa, observing divination sessions, as well as carrying out the daily chores of the priest's household. He may spend several years with his mentor. As he matures, refining his knowledge and skills, he will seek out babalawo in other areas for further instruction, moving from one tutor to another over a period of several years, during which time he will begin to "cast Ifa."

Ifa priests say that Orunmila, a deity present at the time of Creation, knows the prenatal destiny that every individual has chosen, and that this deity gave sixteen sacred palm nuts (ikin Ifa) to his children on earth so that they might be in communication with him. It is also believed that Orunmila's wife, orisa Odu, gave him the "secrets of Odu"—the power to guide those who seek his wisdom. A divination session begins with the priest calling on Orunmila and the ancient babalawo to witness the proceedings. He then shakes sixteen palm nuts in his cupped hands and, holding the ikin in his left hand, attempts to grab the entire group with his right hand. If one palm nut remains in his left hand, he makes two vertical marks with his fingers in the iyerosun dust on the diviner's tray (opon Ifa); if two palm nuts remain, he makes one vertical mark (fig. 5). When eight successful casts have been made, there will be two columns of four vertical marks, forming a configuration that represents one of the 256 possible odu signs. A shorter version of casting Ifa is possible by using a divining chain (opele Ifa). It consists of eight seed pods or small copper-alloy plates with concave/convex surfaces linked by a metal chain or strands of beads. The diviner holds the chain at its center point and casts the chain so that it falls on the cloth laid before him in a pattern that reveals the odu sign.

While waiting for Orunmila's response in the form of an odu sign, all who are present focus intently on the methodical, rhythmic ritual procedure of casting Ifa and on the carved images —such as the kneeling female figure holding a bowl, the rider surrounded by his retinue, and the struggle of the intertwined snake and bird— that adorn the diviner's tapper (iroke Ifa), the bowl (agere Ifa) containing the palm nuts, and the border of the opon Ifa. After the odu sign appears on the divination tray, the suppliant, who has whispered his or her concerns and requests to the ikin Ifa, listens to the priest chant verses from the Odu subsection indicated by the odu sign. In these verses, he/she hears of others who suffered various problems, some perhaps greater than those that brought the suppliant to Ifa, and of the joy that they knew after performing the sacrifices that Ifa had asked them to make.

The suppliant may ask the priest about the significance of the Odu, perhaps concentrating on one set of verses, with or without acknowledging the problem that has brought him/her to consult Ifa. The Ifa verses provide a context for thinking about one's situation in terms of the values that have shaped Yoruba self-understanding, and they recommend what sacrifices must be made by the suppliant, and to what powers. The suppliant leaves the divinatory session with the confidence to take effective action for improving his/her life. Ifa divination provides knowledge; but knowledge without effective action is of little use. Therefore, every divination rite entails an appropriate offering or sacrifice, in some instances a simple gift of food, in others the ritual slaughtering of an animal. Depending on the needs and circumstances of the suppliant, the offering may be to an orisa or to one's personal destiny (ori inu), or to an ancestor or a malevolent spirit, in an acknowledgment of that entity's powers and as a means of petitioning it to bestow or withhold them. Finally, there must also be a sacrifice to orisa Esu (also called Elegba), the guardian of the ritual process, who conveys the messages of the gods and other spirits to humankind and carries their sacrifices to the realm of the spirits. Esu's ase makes life whole and meaningful.

Part 5: Malagasy

The divinatory systems noted thus far have two features in common: all of them are used to gain an understanding of present circumstances in terms of past events, near or distant; and questions about the future focus on matters in the immediate future, such as recovery from illness or adjudicating a family conflict—with the exception of the ever present desire to know if one will have a long and prosperous life. There is also pervasive concern about witchcraft as a cause of personal misfortune, although other causes are identified as well. Among the Malagasy of Madagascar there is a very different focus of interest. As John Mack has observed, mpanandro —the most prestigious form of divination among the Malagasy— is primarily concerned with destiny (vintana) (52).

According to Pierre Vérin and Narivelo Rajasonarimanana, the ombiasy —a general term for a diviner who practices mpanandro— is a "destiny maker" (53). The Malagasy regard the ancestors' role in their lives as crucial, and there is constant communication between the living and the ancestors through dreams, possession, and other signs. However, the significance of the messages is not always clear and requires one to seek out the expertise of a diviner (see fig. 6).

For the Malagasy, the most important method of divination is sikidy, a form of geomancy that relies on the interpretation of "sixteen signs," using texts known as sorabe (literally, "great writings"). These texts, written in Arabic script, have been passed down over generations. They "are at once a repository of esoteric knowledge indicating precedent in the past, and an ongoing archive of observation, . . . an evolving work of reference" (54). Sikidy is employed when the diviner does not know the date of birth of his client or lacks other information essential for bringing the esoteric knowledge of the great texts to alleviate the anxieties and suffering of his client. As in Yoruba Ifa divination, the session begins with the diviner calling on the masters of divination and the great ancestors to aid in the inquiry. As described by Vérin and Rajasonarimanana, figures are then "set up by interpreting even and odd piles of grain. Single or double dots are arranged by fours in sixteen columns, each of which has a name" (55). Then the figures are read in accordance with the importance of the columns. (This procedure is strikingly similar to the tossing of coins or sticks and the interpretation of the resulting configuration through the tetragrams in the I Ching.) To the layman, the sikidy procedure seems almost mechanical and its resulting patterns cryptic, and the sorabe texts are equally unfathomable. Thus, the diviner plays an essential role, interpreting the signs and translating the texts in relationship to the client's vintana, and situating the individual within a larger context of cosmic forces.

The idea that an individual's destiny is closely related to the cosmos is at the heart of Malagasy divination. It is not a matter of fulfilling a prenatal destiny that one has chosen prior to entering the realm of the living, as in Yoruba Ifa divination, or being in rapport with originating powers, as in Yaka spirit mediumship. Malagasy divination is "astrologically based." It is, as Mack observes,

In this system, positioning in space—as in the construction of a house in a particular area, or the relationship of houses to one another in a town, or the location of household artifacts inside a house—is of paramount importance, for compass directions have auspicious and inauspicious associations. The northeasterly direction is the sacred or ancestral direction and is therefore regarded as the most beneficial direction during the performance of certain rituals, such as circumcision. Similarly, the timing of the events in a person's life is believed to affect his or her destiny, with particular hours, days, and months considered to be the most (or least) propitious for certain activities. Within the Malagasy worldview, "destiny is constantly in motion, encountering zones of varying significance on the way" (57). By consulting sikidy and sorabe, an individual achieves an understanding of his or her life in terms of the forces that shape one's destiny, and an awareness of how to live and to orient oneself in relation to such cosmic powers.

Conclusion

All systems of divination are modes of communication developed to bridge realms that are intimately related yet distinguishable—the realm of ordinary or "visible" experience and the realm of unseen powers. Through words, gestures, sounds, and artifacts, divination rites arrest the conventional sense of time and place, providing for a moment another realm of experience, a world dense with meaning, perhaps more real than that in which one has been pursuing his or her daily life. Because they are one form of expression of a larger system of religious thought and practice, divination rites must be understood within a more encompassing cultural context and not as a prescientific mode of inquiry (58). Pluralistic visions of the world coexist in sub-Saharan African cultures. The problems they find themselves confronted with are morally complex, and resolving them requires a combination of faith and skepticism. Life entails multiple possibilities, choices, and decisions, and there is no single answer to the question of how to live. In contrast to Christian and Islamic worldviews, in sub-Saharan African cultures there are no definitive solutions to specific individual problems, only temporary expedients based on the unique circumstances of each situation and a high degree of responsiveness to the particular needs and demands of various individuals and peoples. Hence, divination is concerned with the immediate experience of people and attempts to place it in a context of cultural meaning.

Similarly, an exhibition of artifacts that were created for use in divination rituals must place the objects in a context of cultural meaning. It is obvious that, as with all ritual artifacts, those employed in African systems of divination are instruments, utensils. They have their meaning in the context of ritual performance, used in executing prescribed gestures, prayers, chants, and dances. They are analogous to a crucifix, which is not simply an ornament or a religious symbol, but has its essential meaning in the context of the Catholic Mass. The object is informed by the words of the liturgy and, in this instance, by an elaborate narrative known to those participating in the rite. The same may be said about the sixteen sacred palm nuts (ikin Ifa) and the sculpted caryatid bowls (agere Ifa), which are the central implements in Yoruba Ifa divination rites. The diviner and the suppliant know the story of Orunmila giving the palm nuts to his children to enable them to receive the wisdom of his counsel after he departed for the world of the gods; and the sculpted figures on the bowls represent people whose lives have been empowered by Orunmila's wisdom. Likewise, the sculpture of a kneeling female figure holding a bowl, which is placed next to a Luba diviner when he or she is using an mboko, is recognized by the suppliant as evoking the spiritual power of the diviner, who, like women, is a container of hidden resources.

A ritual artifact is an instrument used to invoke spiritual powers and to signal to the participants transitional moments in the ritual sequence. Through gesture, it is also an extension of the powers of the priest into the surrounding space, enlarging that space and making it sacred, and thus linking priest and suppliant. Furthermore, in the fabrication and consecration of a ritual artifact, a person is imaginatively re-creating the self in terms of a spiritual entity (an ancestor or a deity) that is not otherwise observable apart from the ritual. A Christian crucifix, a Russian Orthodox icon, or a Yaka slitdrum, in its ritual context —whether public or private— is an expression of the inner life of each individual who participates in that ritual. Such artifacts may be said, therefore, to link the self and the transcendent (the "not self"), acting as instruments through which a person becomes in some measure the embodiment of the transcendent, as in the case of a Catholic reliquary or a Kongo nkisi.

Art critic Roberta Smith, in her review of the exhibition "Baule: African Art/Western Eyes," observed that "the intended use and meaning of an African object is central to understanding its form, no matter how beautiful and self-sustaining the form may be" (59). Rowland Abiodun's analysis of the long, graceful, conical form of a Yoruba divination tapper (iroke Ifa) in terms of the Yoruba concept of prenatal destiny (ori inu, literally "inner head") and the central importance of this concept in Ifa divination rites confirms Smith's observation (60). In African art, form and meaning are inextricably related, and meaning entails a knowledge of an object's use (61).

Following David Freedberg's critique of an art theory of "formalism" with reference to the visual arts of Western culture (62), Wyatt MacGaffey points out that "art objects are more than just objects"; in our society, artworks have a "quasi-religious status . . . as embodiments of spiritual power," making the museum the "successor to the municipal temple" (63). Even so, MacGaffey, who has written extensively on the peoples and ritual art of the Congo, goes on to say that "once an object has been appropriated as art . . . its original context and visual effect cannot be recovered and may be irrelevant." Indeed, MacGaffey holds that "culture is untranslatable" (64). To be sure, when a ritual artifact, whether a medieval altar painting or an African shrine sculpture, "has been appropriated as art," the very act of appropriation serves to distance it and perhaps deny its religious and cultural context and meaning, and thus to impose a somewhat alien aesthetic upon it. I say "somewhat," since it is evident that an artist's interest in aesthetic considerations plays a significant part in the creation of such objects and remains, if not always transparent, at least perceptible to the viewer. Abiodun has made it abundantly clear that Yoruba artists are concerned with matters of composition, with the formal properties of a sculpture, and that a sculpture or beaded vestment reveals the artist's "eye for design" (oju-ona), as well as "insight" (oju-inu) into the work's subject (65).

Because cultures are not easily translatable, a foreigner cannot readily know what a Yoruba or Luba or Yaka person experiences in the presence of a ritual artifact. And yet, a work of creative imagination seems able to transcend cultural and historical distances. At the very least, it requires us to take it seriously as a visual presence possessing an informative power. It has the capacity to evoke in us wonder, perhaps even awe or anxiety, which requires us to look again and again and, as far as possible, seek to understand the culture that engendered it.

Freedberg has observed, "Images work [i.e., have the power to signify] because they are consecrated, but at the same time they work before they are consecrated" (66). In the creation of a Yoruba divination bowl or a Luba kneeling female figure with its bowl or a Baule mouse-oracle vessel or a Kongo nkisi figure, it is the skill of the artist who makes it —before its preparation and use by a diviner— that gives the ritual artifact its conceptual significance. In these Yoruba, Luba, Baule, and Kongo carvings, the concept of the self as a container —an embodiment— of power is the underlying subject. In every instance, the object's effectiveness in conveying that idea is the ultimate criterion of its aesthetic quality and provides the basis of its meaningful use within a ritual.

The nkisi figure is perhaps an exception, for it is an assemblage of various materials added to the sculpted form by the diviner and other people over the course of time. It is the creation of many hands, each contributing to its awesome visual and ritual power. Other works of art in Africa have a similar history, evolving over many years and shaped by the experiences of many people. In a review of an exhibition of Buddhist art from Tibet, art critic Holland Cotter observed that "when it comes to religious art, the value of an object often derives less from its physical form than from its history: where it has resided, what ceremonies it has been involved in, who has seen it or handled it. In many cases, though, it would be difficult to separate spiritual content from esthetic form" (67).

The challenge that African sculptural art presents to a Western art museum is to arrest the viewer's attention. Exhibitions must make the viewer feel somewhat discomfited with the recontextualization of African art in a museum environment that has been shaped by Western aesthetic notions and, to some extent, by the colonialist mission of collecting artifacts of "exotic" cultures. At the same time, exhibitions of Africa's art must induce a sense of visual engagement in order to draw the viewer into a new awareness of the skill, imagination, and conceptual sophistication of Africa's artists and the cultural traditions in which they lived and worked. As the "Art and Oracle" exhibition clearly reveals, artistry has an informative power in the ritual life of Africa's people and, if one observes with a sensitive eye, the power to inform others as well.                                                                 back to top

2. Max Weber, "The Social Psychology of the World Religions," in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. E. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 281. Weber used this phrase in reference to "the core of religious rationalism"—that is, to the theodicies articulated by "religions of salvation," such as Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. For Weber, it was what distinguished religions of salvation from "primitive" types of religion whose cosmologies entailed a plurality of references, a multitude of spirits and gods for the explanation of suffering. In each religion of salvation, there is a single "fault" marking humankind, as in the Puritan declaration "In Adam's fall we sinneth all," and there is a single solution: the Path of the Buddha, the Law in Judaism, Christ in Christianity, and the Koran in Islam. Weber's distinction between the two types of religion is too restrictive, revealing his inadequate knowledge of religions beyond the four "world religions" and his Western intellectual propensity to think in terms of a single referent—what Jacques Derrida would later call "the onto-theological" habit of mind. Africa's religious systems are far more complex and more fully articulated than Weber was aware.

3. Griaule 1937; Geneviève Calame-Griaule, Words and the Dogon World (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1965/86), pp. 523–27.

4. Evans-Pritchard 1937, pp. 258–386.

5. Mary Nooter Roberts and Allen F. Roberts, "Memory in Motion," in Memory 1996, pp. 180–85.

6. Marc L. Felix, in Marc L. Felix, Charles Meur, and Niangi Batulukisi, 100 Peoples of Zaire and Their Sculpture (Brussels: Zaïre Basin Art History Research Foundation, 1987), pp. 30–31, 62–63, 74–75.

7. Roberts and Roberts, "Memory in Motion," in Memory 1996, pp. 185–204.

8. René Devisch, "Mediumistic Divination among the Northern Yaka of Zaïre," in Peek 1991, pp. 112–32.

9. Sonia Silva, "The Birth of a Divination Basket," in Chokwe! 1998, pp. 140–51; Manuel Jordán, "Art and Divination among Chokwe, Lunda, Luvale, and Related Peoples of Northwestern Zambia," in Pemberton 2000.

10. Piet Meyer, "Divination among the Lobi of Burkina Faso," in Peek 1991, pp. 91–100.

11. Glaze 1981, pp. 54–74.

12. Abimbola 1976; Bascom 1969.

13. Louis Brenner, "Muslim Divination and the History of Religion in Sub-Saharan Africa," in Pemberton 2000.

14. Kunst der Guro 1985, pp. 23–26; Lorenz Homberger, "Where the Mouse Is Omniscient: The Mouse Oracle among the Guro and Baule," in Pemberton 2000.
15. Paul Gebauer, Spider Divination in the Cameroons, Public Museum Publication in Anthropology, no. 10 (Milwaukee, Wis.: Public Museum, 1964).

16. Baule 1997, pp. 221–25.

17. Allen F. Roberts, "Difficult Decisions, Perilous Acts: Producing Potent Histories with Tabwa Boiling-Water Oracle," in Pemberton 2000.

18. Eliot Fratkin, "The Loibon as Sorcerer: A Samburu Loibon among the Ariaal Rendille, 1973–87," Africa 61, no. 3 (1991), pp. 319–21.

19. Wyatt MacGaffey, entries for catalogue numbers 64 and 65 in Kings of Africa 1992, p. 310; Marc L. Felix, Art & Kongos: Les peuples Kongophones et leur sculpture Biteki Bia Bakongo (Brussels: Zaïre Basin Art History Research Center, 1995), p. 36.

20. John Mack, "Telling and Foretelling: African Divination and Art in Wider Perspective," in Pemberton 2000.

21. Plato, in his Phaedrus (a dialogue between Phaedrus and Socrates), has Socrates speak of "a madness which is a divine gift, and the source of the chiefest blessings granted to men. For prophecy is a madness, and the prophetess at Delphi and the priestesses at Dodona when out of their senses have conferred great benefits on Hellas, both in public and private life, but when in their senses few or none. And I might also tell you how the Sibyl and other inspired persons have given to many an one many an intimation of the future which has saved them from falling." Socrates goes on to distinguish between "prophecy, which foretells the future and is the noblest of arts, . . . an inspired madness" (and which, he notes, only differs from the Greek word for "madness" by one letter), and "augury," compared to which, "prophecy is more perfect and august . . . both in name and in fact, in the same proportion as the ancients testify, [as] madness is superior to a sane mind, for the one is only of human, but the other of divine origin." Quoted from The Dialogues of Plato, trans. and with analyses and introductions by B. Jowett, vol. 1 (New York: Macmillan, 1982), pp. 396, 449–50. See also Plato's Phaedrus, trans. and with introduction and commentary by R. Hackworth (Cambridge,: Cambridge University Press, 1952), pp. 56–57.

22. Evan M. Zuesse, "Divination," in The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987), pp.375-82

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23. Evans-Pritchard 1937, p. 69.

24. Ibid., p. 70

25. Ibid., p. 75.

26. Ibid., pp. 352–57

27. Ibid., pp. 359–74.

28. Jan-Lodewijk Grootaers, in a letter to the author, December 1999

Fig. 1. An Azande diviner uses a friction oracle (iwa), holding his foot against the lower part to keep the instrument in place and rubbing the upper part against it.

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29. S. Terry Childs and Pierre de Maret, "Re/Constructing Luba Pasts," in Memory 1996, pp. 49–59.

30. William J. Dewey and S. Terry Childs, "Forging Memory," in Memory 1996, p. 62

31. Roberts and Roberts, "Memory in Motion," in Memory 1996, p. 180.

32. Ibid., p. 126.

33. Ibid., p. 118.

34. Ibid., p. 189.

35. Both men and women may be Bilumbu diviners. Female royal diviners are referred to as Kifikwa. According to Roberts and Roberts, oral traditions suggest that, in the past, "female diviners were more common than their counterparts." Although today most Bilumbu diviners are male, some are female and are held in high regard. Ibid.,p. 187.

36. Ibid., pp. 189–94.

Fig. 2. A Luba Bilumbu diviner prepares to consult his mboko, the sacred gourd in front of him; seated at his right is his wife, and at his left is a female bowl figure, representing the spirit by which he is possessed during the ritual.

37. Ibid., p. 195.

38. Turner 1975, p. 217.

Fig. 3. A Luba diviner and her client, performing a kashekesheke divination ritual, jointly hold a friction oracle known as a kakishi on a woven mat on the ground between them.

39. Roberts and Roberts, "Memory in Motion," in Memory 1996, pp. 182–85.

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40. Devisch 1985; Devisch, "Mediumistic Divination," in Peek 1991; René Devisch, "The Slit Drum and Body Imagery in Mediumistic Divination among the Yaka," in Pemberton 2000.

41. Devisch, "Mediumistic Divination," in Peek 1991, p. 112.

42. In every divination rite, an element of doubt is present on the part of the client. As Rosalind Shaw observed in her study of Temne divination in Sierra Leone, divination as a "truth-constructing process . . . presents an image of truth as enigmatic." In contrast to more analytical divinatory procedures, many forms of divination entail understanding and resolution that depend on an "intense act of vision required of the diviner" and an awareness by the suppliant that "powerful hidden knowledge" may have "ambivalent ethical connotations." Shaw, "Splitting Truths from Darkness: Epistemological Aspects of Temne Divination," in Peek 1991, pp. 141–44. Even in the consultations of Ifa, one can discuss matters of concern with the babalawo or ignore him, seek a second opinion by having Ifa cast again, or go to another diviner.

43. Z. S. Strother, "Smells and Bells: The Role of Skepticism in Pende Divination," in Pemberton 2000.

Fig. 4. Lusuungu, a Yaka diviner in Yibeengala village, taps a slitdrum (n-kookwa Ngoombu) while possessed by a spirit during a divination ritual.

44. Turner 1975.

45. Devisch, "The Slit Drum," in Pemberton 2000.

46. Ibid. 47. Ibid.

47. Ibid

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48. See Yoruba 1989, pp. 45–75.

49. The phrase "401 orisa" is a Yoruba convention meaning "many," "an abundance," "a plethora" of deities (orisa). It is similar to the biblical use of the number forty to refer to an extended period of time ("forty days and forty nights"). There are a number of orisa that are well known throughout Yorubaland, but even this number is not fixed. Quite often orisa have different names in different towns and among people within the same town. See John Pemberton, "A Cluster of Sacred Symbols: Orisha Worship among the Igbomina Yoruba of Ila-Orangun," History of Religions 7, no. 3 (1977), pp. 1–29; and Karin Barber, "How Man Makes God in West Africa: Yoruba Attitudes Towards the Orisa," Africa 51, no. 3 (1981), pp. 723–45.

50. Abimbola 1975; Abimbola 1976; Abimbola 1977.

Fig. 5. Ifa priests at the palace of the Orangun-Ila cast the sixteen sacred palm nuts (ikin Ifa) to determine which subsection from the Odu Ifa they must consult, and the corresponding sign is traced in the iyerosun powder on the diviner's tray (opon Ifa).

51. Abimbola 1977, pp. 24–25.

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52. Mack 1986; Mack, "Telling and Foretelling," in Pemberton 2000.

53. Pierre Vérin and Narivelo Rajasonarimanana, "Divination in Madagascar: The Antemoro Case and the Diffusion of Divination," in Peek 1991, p. 54.

Fig. 6. Betsimisaka ombiasy (diviner and ritual specialist) invoking the ancestors at the blessing, which precedes sacrifice. Eastern Madagascar. Photograph by John Mack, 1984.
54. Mack, "Telling and Foretelling," in Pemberton 2000.

55. Vérin and Rajasonarimanana, "Divination in Madagascar," in Peek 1991, pp. 53–68.

56. Mack, "Telling and Foretelling," in Pemberton 2000.
57. Ibid.

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58. Peek 1991, pp. 193–208.

59. Roberta Smith, "Objects of Wonder That Are too Potent for Mere Display," New York Times, September 11, 1998, p. B37.

60. Rowland Abiodun, "Ifa Art Objects: An Interpretation Based on Oral Tradition,Ó in Abimbola 1975; Abiodun 1981.
61. To speak of African ritual artifacts as art is either to recontextualize them within a culturally legitimated post-Kantian aesthetic of formal properties, as a class of objects set aside in a museum or personal collection, or to be mindful of the extent to which the ritual artifacts of sub-Saharan Africa call into question such an aesthetic perception.
62. David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History of Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
63. MacGaffey 1998, pp. 229–30.

64. Ibid., p. 230.

65. Abiodun 1983, pp. 13–30; Abiodun 1987, pp. 252–70; Yoruba Art and Aesthetics 1991, pp. 20–26.

66. Freedberg, Power of Images, p. 98.

67. Holland Cotter, "Remnants of Tibetan Splendor, Divine and Intimate," New York Times, October 29, 1999, p. E38.