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Arachnomancy
(page 2)
The indigenous species the diviners use for this
ancient craft is a large, black and hairy earth-dwelling spider, said to be
an aggressive nocturnal hunter. These arachnids are thought by the local
inhabitants to be the messengers of a mysterious and powerful spirit that
purportedly has excellent night vision and is in constant contact with the
dearly departed. In this region of Cameroon it is a capital crime to kill
these divinatory spiders.
To perform the oracular reading the mod ngam, literally
"man of spiders," locates an inhabited spider-hole and clears the
area immediately around it of all vegetation and any other interfering
objects and debris. Alternatively the spider can be dug out of its hole and
taken to a more conveniently sited abandoned hole in which it will be kept.
The diviner then places over the spider's burrow a large pot that has its
bottom knocked out. After placing his set of divining cards in it, usually
near the burrow's entrance, the
diviner adds a stone and a stick, all prearranged in a specific way. The
mod ngam then covers the pot with a shard or piece of tin as a lid which can
be removed to inspect the entrance to the burrow and its immediate
surroundings.
If the diviner is trying to interpret the
origin of a illness, misfortune, or other type of
general oracular determination, he awaits — often overnight — for the spider
to eventually come out of its burrow
and, by trying to escape the pot, rearrange the cards.
If instead the diviner
needs an answer for a specific question, he taps the pot. In response to the
knocking the spider emerges from its hole, and by doing so, it disturbs the
leaves. Understanding is then achieved by considering the cards
new position in relation to the stone and the stick. Questions allow one of
two responses, one explicitly associated with the stick and the other with
the stone. Sometimes numerous stones and sticks are used, to allow answers
associated with different individuals.
Several different spiders may be
consulted simultaneously. This enables a faster rate of questioning since
sometimes twenty minutes elapse before the diviner can check whether the
spider has responded to a question. It also allows a consistency check to be
made by asking the same question of different spiders. Diviners admit that
ambiguous or unintelligible answers are possible, but assert that this
seldom occurs.
See
Ailuromancy, Myomancy, Zoomancy,
Casting Black Magic Spells,
Commanding Spirits,
The Tarot Store and
Divination & Scrying Tools and
Supplies.
Sources: (1) Pickover, Clifford A.,
Dreaming the Future: The
Fantastic Story of Prediction, Prometheus Books;
(2) Pascal, Boyer,
The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion,
University of California Press; (3) Zeitlyn, David, Spiders In and Out of
Court, or, 'The Long Legs of the Law': Styles of Spider Divination in their
Sociological Contexts; (4)
Gebauer, Paul, Spider Divination in the Cameroons;
(5) Rowe, John Rowland, Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Conquest.
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