practice

Lots

Rituals

The drawing or casting of marked pieces to answer a question. Sortition, Ifá palm nuts, and Yijing stalks are related as a method-type, not as one rite.

Also known as sortilege · cleromancy

  • Lots is used in Divination.

    Casting marked pieces is one family of asking. Ifá, Yijing, and Greek sortition are related as a method-type, not as one rite.

    used in · interpretive · documented

  • Lots is associated with Fate.

    A lot can be treated as what was already allotted. Sortition can also be a fair way to choose without claiming fate.

    associated with · interpretive · culturally specific

  • Bone is used in Lots.

    Marked bone has been used as a lot in more than one place. Each method has a home; this edge stays a type, not a single rite.

    used in · interpretive · culturally specific

  • Divination contains Lots.

    Lots are one instrument inside the broader craft of asking.

    contains · interpretive · documented

  • Tarot is used in Lots.

    A shuffled pack is a modern European lot. The pictures are a game’s inheritance; the fortune-telling use is later.

    used in · interpretive · modern interpretation

Yoruba Ifá

  • Lots is used in Yoruba Ifá.

    Ifá, as Bascom describes it, uses palm nuts or a chain to produce a figure for which verses are recited. The lots are Yoruba equipment.

    from William Bascom · Ifa Divination, 1969

    used in · sourced · culturally specific

  • Opele is used in Lots.

    Bascom describes the opele chain as the Ifá instrument that falls into a figure when the palm nuts are not cast. A named lots-chain of that ethnography, not ikin, and not the opon Ifá tray.

    from William Bascom · Ifa Divination, 1969

    used in · sourced · culturally specific

Daoism

Yoruba Ifá · Yoruba culture

  • Cowrie is used in Lots.

    Casting cowries is a lots-technique in several West African and diaspora practices. Method-type, not one rite and not a slave-trade ledger.

    from William Bascom · Ifa Divination, 1969

    used in · partially sourced · documented

sources

  • Ifa Divination · William Bascom

    William Bascom, Ifa Divination: Communication between Gods and Men in West Africa.

  • I Ching (Yijing) · Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation)

    The I Ching or Book of Changes, trans. Richard Wilhelm, English Cary F. Baynes.