ramalu geomancy divination

7/25/2019 Ramalu Geomancy Divination

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these aspects concerns, for instance, the link between cola nuts, their consumption,and sociality.

When breaking a cola nut into halfs with the purpose of eating it, one shouldoffer pieces of the nut to all persons present before taking any of it in ones mouth.Eating it alone in the presence of others could result into subsequent misfortune,misery, and even death. But why is the individual consumption of cola nutsconsidered to be dangerous? The reason for this seems to lie in the fact that cola nutconsumption, and consequently also the object of the nut itself, is linked to a complex

and much wider cultural logic of exchange, reciprocity, and sharing, that lies at thecore of the cultural ideology and praxis of sociality that must not and cannot beignored by the individual subject engaging in social praxis. Seen from such a perspective it could be argued that the reason for the ritual significance of cola nutslies not in their association with spirit entities ( jinool ) as such but in their practicaland symbolic relatedness to sociality. In other words, jinn are not only non-humancreatures populating a local imaginary but objectified inversions of sociality,embodying the negativity of non-social behaviour.

Although far from being exceptional, as the above examples show, explicitallusions to jinn or other spirits, or a somehow altered state of mind, are not the rule.Most diviners act and present themselves during consultation in ways that do notdiffer markedly from situations outside the divinatory encounter. Their conduct anddemeanour mainly incite the impression of dignity, respectfulness, and balancednessthat is commonly associated with the person of an elder (kebaa) or a religiouslylearned person (moro in Mandinka or serigne in Wolof), without explicit indicationsof non-human or super-natural forces at play. However, the absence of visible signs orexplicit allusions to spirits in a specific consultational situation does not necessarily

mean that this dimension of divinatory praxis could not play a hidden or secret butnevertheless important role in the consultational event. Given the relative widedistribution of stories relating maraboutic and divinatory activities to the realm ofspirit entities, it is, for instance, quite possible that a client assumes, almost byconvention, that the diviner is in contact with spirits during the divination procedurewithout there being a particular indication of this in the specific consultationalsituation. In such a situation, the a priori assumptions of the client concerning the


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powers at play in divination almost inevitably have an impact on the clients specificexperience of the divinatory encounter. In another case, however, it is possible thatwhile the client feels unconcerned about the kind of agencies intervening in thedivinatory process, the diviner himself may be convinced that his ability to divinedepends upon his relationship to a tutelary spirit that has to be respected andmaintained in specific ways, necessating specific ritual precautions.

Despite the frequent refernces to spirit entities and esoteric initiations in thecontext of cowrie (and other forms of) divination, most diviners that I worked with

emphasized that cowrie divination, in the same way as Islamic geomancy, rests upona technical basis that can be learned and aquired. Samba Nguer, for instance, told meat the beginning of our cooperation that due to his instructions I would be able, at theend of our lessons, to understand most of what the cowries would tell me, withoutgoing through any kind of initiation, trance experience, or any other ritual measureaiming at establishing a relation with the spirit realm (apart from the ritual preparationof the shells described above). And even where diviners refer to contacts with jinn orother non-human spirit entities as mediators, extrasensory capacities, or a highlyspecialized knowledge (londoo) of ritual secrets (sing.kungloo) revealed throughdreams or acquired from other specialists at high costs and/or long periods ofapprenticeship, the technical basis referred to by Samba Nguer is agreed upon almostwithout exception. Specific positions or configurations of shells within a particularlay-out are perceived as signs (tamansee) that indicate the course of development ofspecific aspects of the subjects immediate social and economic environment andallow for the understanding of the inquiring subjects personal state of mind andemotional condition. The following section of this chapter explains a number offrequently encountered positions, their names in Wolof, and their signification in

Senegambian cowrie divination.

Positions in Cowrie-Shell Divination: their Names and their Meaning

The following examples of frequently interpreted positions in cowrie divination wereexplained to me by Samba Nguer, in Serekunda, Gambia, in June/July 2003. The


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Illustration 2.3: Samba Nguer, Serekunda, Gambia.


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illustrations are photographic reconstructions of the positions that Samba Nguerconsidered relevant for me to know and memorize. The positions are rearrangedaccording to sketches I made during the lessons I received. All terms and names are inWolof.

One of the most basic distinctions necessary for the reading of the different poistionsin cowrie divination is that between those shells that fall with their white concaveouter surface pointing upwards and those who fall on their backside. The former were

referred to by Samba Nguer either as fermee (closed, from the French ferm) or asdafa dep (lying on its belly) (cf. the top shell in the picture underneath), while thelatter were referred to asubeku (open) (cf. the lower of the two cowries). In many lay-outs, the closed shells would be conceived of as symbolizing male persons while openones would be seen as relating to women. Samba Nguer would apply this distinctionat the beginning of the session when identifying, through several preliminary casts,the shells upon which he would ask his client to pronounce his intention or concern.In the case of male clients, he would select four closed shells pointing towards theclient, while with female clients he would choose four open shells pointing in theclients direction. 18 In other situations, however, open and closed shells would bedistinguished without being interpreted according to their male and femaleconnotations. So would Samba Nguer, for instance, count the closed shells in certainlay-outs in order to identify the number of objects that should be distributed as sadaa.In these instances, the indication of sadaa would be their only interpretative value andtheir otherwise assumed male connotation would not come into play.

Many of the significant positions or signs are formed by not more than twoshells. This does not only mean that great attention has to be paid to the exact position

of many single shells within a lay-out, but also that a single lay-out easily containstwo or three signs that can and often will be read in relation to each other.

18 All cowrie diviners would pass some of the shells to their clients in order to pronouncetheir intentions. However, not all of them would follow the same procedure of carefullyselecting the appropriate shells according to their orientation.


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An important example for a position containing only two single shells consists in twoeither open (female) or closed cowries (male), lying side by side but pointing inopposite directions. This position is interpreted as a sign of long life ( gudd fan) andgood health (wr ):

If one of the shells lies with its open side upwards, the same position signifies a stateof hesitation, uncertainty, ambivalence, and undecideness called xel aar ([being of]

two minds), xel bu werente(an arguing mind),nakhar (something disliked orunpleasant), or sikisaka (zigzag):


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If in the same position both cowries point into the same direction, this indicates acalm and untroubled mind ( xel mu dal ):

Two open shells pointing towards each other with their back (taat , lit. the bottom)indicate a good marriage ( sey bu nex):


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A similar position where both cowries seem to move away from each other is called sey butas, a dispersed marriage, indicating divorce:

Both positions are related two the position of ngoro, lit. engagement, indicatingconcern for a person of the other sex either in form of a love affair or in form of anactual concern for making first arrangements towards marriage; metonymically, thesame position also often indicates a possibly conflictual relationship with ones in-laws, i.e. those people towards which one has obligations through marriage:


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Two cowries pointing at each other with their heads (bop), and lying in one line,indicate an agreement (waxtan) between two parties:

If the two heads overlap, the position indicateskhoulo (quarrel) or japante (dispute,discussion, fight):

If the two cowries still seem oriented towards each other but one of them seems todiverge in direction, the position indicates a disagreement (illustration missing).


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If one cowrie (open or closed) is covering another, open shell, the position is called bir , the belly, indicating pregnancy (embe). The relative position of the upper cowrieindicates the position of the fetus.

If the top shell seems to glide off the other, the position indicates the act of giving birth (wosin).


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A closed shell partly covering up an open one is seen as indicating the state of beingill ( feybar ). If, as in the illustration below the head of the lower shell is covered, thisis understood as a sign of grave illness that may even lead to the death of the person:

The exact prognosis of the development of a persons illness becomes only evidentthrough the contextualization of the position by the rest of the lay-out. In the example below, the position indicating the persons illness (upper left) is specified by a line of

four open shells lying parallel to each other (right):

If we assume that the client sits to the right side of the lay-out, so that the shells wouldappear to be moving away from him or her, this would either indicate the soonrecovery of the patient or the fact that the illness is a matter of the past, rather than the present. The possible development of the clients illness is further specified by signsof good health (wr ) and a long life ( gudd fan) appearing in the lower left half of the


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lay-out. In order to safeguard the positive development of the subjects healthcondition, the client would be advised to distribute two white objects as sadaa (candles, white kola, chickens, etc), indicated by the two closed shells on the top and buttom of the open shells that indicate his or her recovery. In a way, the context of the position indicating a grave illness is, in this case, nullified by the rest of the lay-out.This results in a total lay-out that would usually be commented upon with expressionssuch as peace only ( jamm rek ), orbakhna (it is allright, lit. good), both expressionsindicating an ultimately positive state of affairs.

A closed cowrie covered by another closed shell at its broad end is usually referred toas poliis (police) but may also include military personel as it is generally conceived ofas representing any person wearing a uniform. In most cases, this position indicatesarrest, trouble with state authorities, or other legal conflicts in which the interventionof the police might be expected. In the illustration below, the person in uniform(right) can be seen pursuing a single individual, indicated by the single shell turningtowards the upper left half of the picture. This individual will most likely beunderstood as representing the inquiring client himself, a male member of the family,or a close friend.

An open cowrie covering a closed one indicates betrayal (wor ). If the pointed ends ofthe cowries lie above each other in one line the attempt of betrayal is likely to


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succeed. If the directions of the pointed ends diverge, the betrayal is likely to be invain and will not harm the person concerned.

A closed or open cowrie half leaning over another open shell is perceived asrepresenting a person washing him- or herself over a bowl of water, indicating ritualablutions ( sangu):

A position in which a cowrie almost stands on its head is understood as indicatingshame (rus). In most cases this points towards the fact that someone is acting againstthe clients interest but will not succeed. A situation which, ideally, should cause that person to be ashamed of his or her actions.


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A single cowrie lying on its side ( jaasi) is often referred to askibaar , lit. news (fromthe Arabickhabar , pl. akhbar ), indicating the arrival of a letter or the receiving of atelephone call.

A few signs are composed of three or four cowries. This is for instance the case forthe sign indicating a person of the night (niti guddi) or sorcerer (dm). The sign is perceived as ressembling a vulture (tan) with wide spread wings:

In most cases, Samba Nguer referred to it asniti guddi, person of the night, ratherthan dm in order to make clear to his clients that they were not confronted withoccult non-human entities but with other people using maraboutic magical actionagainst them. Their actions however, he always assured his clients, would have noeffect as long as the client takes the recommended ritual measures (distributing sadaa,using ablutions that could be prepared for the purpose of protection, perhaps wearing


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a protective amulet, etc.). In the illustration below, the sorcerer/person of thenight/vulture can be seen attacking a person already heavily ill:

Other signs are composed out of a larger number of shells. A circle of cowriessurrounding another single shell is for instance perceived as representing the house(kr ), reflecting the enclosure surrounding the building or buildings forming acompound in rural architecture, even if today many compounds show a rectangularstructure. The same constellation of shells can also indicate plas (derived from the

French place), i.e. a job opportunity, or a position in an institution or company.

If, however, the surrounding shells point towards the person encircled in the middle,the same position does not indicate the house or a possible opportunity for salariedwork. Instead, it reveals the danger ofcatt , the ill-intended speech of thers (alsoreferred to aslami, the tongue), a notion comparable to the cultural concept of the


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eye (al-ain) in North Africa and the Middle East which, in the same way ascatt , isoften interpreted as indicating the injurious influence of social envy.

A position in which a single shell is found at a considerable distance from a cluster ofshells and positioned as if moving away from where the client is seated, is referred toas yoon, the path, or yoonu tukki, the path of travel, indicating entrepreneurial travelor migration to Europe or elsewhere. If the cowrie moves into the direction of the

client rather than away from him, the same position is understood as indicating thearrival of a foreigner, gan, i.e. a visitor or guest.

A cluster or pile of closed shells is referred to as xalis, money, orbagaas, from theFrench bagage, luggage, in both cases indicating (the reception of) wealth and prosperity:


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Four cowries positioned in the corners of an imaginary quadrangle would traditionally be interpreted as the four feet of a cow or bull, embodying the promise of an increasein property useful for household and family. Today, the same position is usuallyreferred to aswoto, derived from the Frenchvoiture, indicating the acquisition or giftof a car, embodying the promise of income (if used, for instance, as a taxi) and a moreaffluent and comfortable life.19

19 To have the expectation of receiving a car as a gift may seem unusual to the outsideobserver. In the Senegambian context, however, although few actually have the luck, to begiven a car by a relative or friend living abroad, in Europe or the US, either as a gift, or inorder to work with and with the promise of a reasonable share in the expected profit, is, inthe light of chronic unemployment and very poor payment for most kinds of work to theaverage person, often the only realistic hope to ever obtain a car.


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All of the here listed configurations of cowrie-shells or signs (Mand.tamansee)occur regularly during sessions of cowrie divination and can be interpreted by thediviner. The direction and spatial coordination of single shells or specific clusters ofshells indicate in how far and in what way different positions refer to the subject ormay be related to other persons within the subjects environment. Additionalinformation can be derived from counting the number of open and closed shells in a particular lay-out. With female clients, Samba Nguer counts the shells that fall withtheir open side pointing up (ubeku, open), while with male clients he counts those

with the open side down, i. e. lying on their belly (dafa dep) or being closed ( ferm).An even number of shells (matna, lit. it is enough) indicates positive developments,while an uneven number (dafa manqu, lit. there is a lack, from the French manquer , to lack), indicates obstacles or difficulties in the predicted course of events.Regardless of being even or uneven, a lay-out showing a large numbers of open orclosed shells forming a single cluster, is read as indicating a heap of money ( xaalis) orluggage (bagaas), signs that announce good luck and the acquisition of materialwealth. When such a cluster of shells appeared, Samba Nguer would indicate itexplicitly to his client. He would then ask his client to touch the cowries with the open palm of his or her right hand, and then touch his or her own forehead and heart withthat same hand so that the blessings contained in this particular position of the cowrieshells will be accepted and safeguarded.

In this context, it is interesting to note that most of the Wolof expressionsused to describe the different positions and signs have exact equivalents in Mandinkaand vice versa.20 As with the terms and categories used in Islamic geomancy, theexistence of equivalent designations in several different West African languagesshows that these divinatory technologies are not restricted to single linguistic or

ethnic groups but provide for an interethnic and interregional technology. This has both practical as well as more theoretical consequences.

As far as clients speak the language of the diviner in question they can anddo consult diviners from other ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. Diviners, in turn,will provide their services to clients from different linguistic backgrounds and often

20 Cf. the comparative glossary of divinatory terms in the appendix of this study.


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be able to communicate in their respective language. Most people in the Casamanceand the Gambia are bi- or multilingual. They are often not only proficient in thelanguage of cohabiting or neighbouring communities, but also master the linguafranca of near-by (regional) centers (for instance Crole or Wolof in the region aroundZguinchor, or Wolof when staying or living in Dakar). Not surprisingly, diviners donot feel restricted in terms of the geographical radius where they are able to operate.Many specialists often undertake journeys to the bigger cities for access to a largerclientele, even if they do not feel particularly confident with the dominant language of

that area. In that case, diviners often rely upon the help of a relative or friend who issufficiently familiar with both languages. These journeys can last from a few days upto several months, for instance when immediate assistance is requried for a client withwhom one already has a long established relationship. Although based and firmlyrooted in the Middle Casamance, Abdoulay Karamba Faty, my host in the villagewhere I started my research in 2002 and himself a specialist in geomancy, used tospend several months in Dakar each year, often during the dry season when therewere little agricultural activities to be supervised on the fields, and especially before banna saloo, the annual Islamic slaughtering feast, in order to be able cover for theconsiderable extra-costs of that feast consisting, for instance, in a ram to be sacrificedin the familys compound, extra food supplies in order to be able to welcome guests,and, if possible, new cloths for the members of the family. Other diviner-maraboutsundertake trips to or take residence in other African regions (several times I heard e.g.of specialists working in Gabon), in the Gulf area, Europe or North America wherethey provide their services not only to the members of West African migrantcommunities, but also to other African migrants, as well as members of theautochtonous population of their host countries.21 On a more theoretical level, the fact

that most divinatory terms and categories have equivalents in the different languagesspoken in the Senegal and Gambia shows that maraboutic divination cannot be

21 Sometimes pioneering migration to certain areas, sometimes following currents ofmigration already under way, today West African marabout-diviners operate in manyEuropean and North American cities (cf. e.g. Kuczynskis extensive study on WestAfrican marabouts in Paris [Kuczynski 2002]).


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reduced to a single local hermeneutic tradition but must be considered as a translocaltechnology with a common ritual repertoire. It is due to this translocal, translinguistic,and transethnical structure of Senegambian divinatory praxis that it actually makessense to speak about Senegambian rather than Mandinka, Wolof, Peul, Serer,Balant, Mandjak or Diola divination, even if ones research mainly draws, as isthe case with this study, on material in only two of the mentioned languages(Mandinka and Wolof). At the same time, it is important to note that in some of thementioned ethnic and linguistic contexts there may be divinatory traditions that do not

pertain translocal tradition of maraboutic divination which I describe here but are partof earlier, non-Islamic, local cultural traditions, often linked to other socioculturalfields than the personal difficulties and endeavours that are characteristic formaraboutic consultations. Among Lebou and Wolof, for instance, divination plays animportant role in the ancestral religious and therapeutic praxis of possession rituals(cf. Zemplni 1966: esp. 329-340), while divination among Manjak speakers inGuinee-Bissau and Senegal has been described as being primarily concerned withissues of witchcraft and the protection from it (cf. Teixeira 2001)? a topic that hasalso been described as being central to the concerns of most central and southernAfrican divinatory traditions.

Considering the large number of different positions that the cast shells can form, andremembering Samba Nguers emphasis upon the necessity of learning how torecognize and interprete them, it becomes clear that, technically, cowrie shelldivination operates through the process of grasping the meaning of significant patterns and constellations of shells within the larger lay-out into which the shells fallwith each cast. The interpretative process concentrates on the identification of

relevant topics (social relationships and conflicts, personal projects such as marriage,work, migration, etc.) and conditions (unrest, ambivalence, illness, etc.). Bytranslating the figurative and symbolic signs found in the divinatory lay-out intostatements about the clients personal situation and/or affliction the diviner is able togain insight and to develop a first understanding of the specific case. This process ofidentifying the issues most urgent and relevant for his client is complemented by a parallel interpretative move of identifying the specific value or tendency of the issues


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indicated by the divinatory signs. As described above, this complementinginterpretation often draws on the potential meaningfulness of the number of closed oropen shells within each lay-out. Another way of identifying the specific value ortendency of the issues appearing in the configurations of the cowries lies in the possibility to interprete the spatial position and orientation of the signs in relation tothe place where the client is sitting during the consultation. Shells pointing away fromthe consulter can for instance be understood as indicating that the problem in questionis about to dissolve (perhaps already being a matter of the past) while shells pointing

towards the client can indicate that the developments predicted still lie ahead of thesubject (may be showing developments in the more distant rather than near-by future).

From Technical Knowledge and Linear Interpretation to Force and Intuition

Somehow, at the moment one has understood and described the technical basis ormethod of this type of divination, everything seems to be said. In a way, this is alsowhat happened during the process of my apprenticeship with Samba Nguer. Once Ihad learned to distinguish (and memorized) the different positions that can beidentified in the divinatory lay-out, the enigmatic veil of the divinatory proceeding being lifted and its technical properties layed bare, there seemed little more to say.Although this did not happen abruptly: next to the instructions that I received, I hadthe chance to assist at many consultations which we then discussed, and there weremany other issues to talk about ranging from those aspects of his work that were notdirectly related to divination (such as healing techniques, the making of protectiveamulets, etc.), to his life-history, and other, more personal issues, touched upon in

increasingly informal conversations. But one could feel that the end of ourcooperation was approaching. At the same time, however, (and it is here that my personal experience, I believe, echoes an experience familiar to many novices ofesoteric or otherwise complex professions) I knew that despite the knowledge I hadaquired, I would not be able to divine in the same way as I had witnessed Samba Nguer doing with such certainty and success so many times. The reason why thenovice doubts his ability to succesfully apply the knowledge he acquired is, of course,


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not to be found in the novices incompetence (although it can feel that way) but in anevident lack of praxis. In other words, what characterizes the situation of the noviceafter having acquired the technical basis of a particular divinatory technique is thenecessity to attempt to gradually apply in praxis that what he has learned only intheory and through observation. Accordingly, when, at the end of our cooperation,Samba Nguer gave me the set of cowries he had prepared for me, he encouraged meto use them regularly, to practise the casting movements as often as possible in orderto get comfortable with it, and to trust their messages and my own understanding of

what the shells would reveal. Gradually, he said, I would be able to divinesuccessfully and everything I would tell someone asking to throw the cowries for him,that person would see.

The necessity for the novice to move from theoretical knowledge to applyingthe outlined interpretative techniques practically and personally shows that the process of learning how to divine is never fully identical to the transmission andacquisition of formal procedural and interpretative principles. In other words, while itremains crucial for the future practitioner, as well as for the cultural analyst, to learnand to understand how a specific technique works, the description of the technical principles can never describe the totality of (the doing of) divination as the actualdivinatory performance is necessarily mediated by the personal agency of the diviner.

The fact that the actual process of divination is necessarily mediated throughthe person of the (individual) diviner has important implications. It can, for instance,account for many of the particularities and idiosyncrasies that can be observed amongdifferent practitioners. Why does one diviner, for instance, carefully select, by several preliminary casts, the shells most suitable for the articulation of thenganiyo by theclient, while another diviner would just take a number of shells regardless their

position in the lay-out, may be even without first having specifically cast them? Whilethe origin of such differences between different diviners is not even necessarily belocated in his own decision but is perhaps just a reproduction of what was explainedto him during his apprenticeship or revealed in his dreams, it is easy to imagine that,historically, such differences have slipped into praxis due to individual changes ofhabit and/or personal preference.


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Furthermore, the necessity of applying schematic interpretatory models tospecific consultational situations that are never fully identical leads not only todifferentiations in the outward way of applying and executing a specific divinatorytechnique among different diviners but also necessarily entails a kind of internaldifferentiation within the person of the diviner himself. As shown above, many positions in cowrie divination can be interpreted in different ways: a circle of shellsappearing in a particular lay-out can be conceived of indicating the house orcompound of the person (kr ), the family and relatives living with the consulter, ill-

intended speech of others (catt ) likely to neccessitate ritual protection, or a place or job opportunity within an institution or company ( plas). When asked how one couldknow in which case this or other signs that have multiple interpretative values wouldcarry which of their possible meanings, the diviners I worked with said unanimouslythat in most cases, they would just know, without having to rely upon specific furtherindications within the particular lay-out.

What this points to in my opinion is, on the one hand, that the meaning of a particular sign is not only derived from its position or direct semiotic context within a particular lay-out but that it is also understood from the context of the consultation,i.e. from his understanding of his clients situation arrived at prior or during theconsultation, as well as from his general insight into the material and psychosocialconditions of his clients. One the other hand, however, when a particular lay-out orsign has several different or ambivalent meanings, the ability of the diviner to actuallyidentify the intentional concern of the client, to assess the possible developments ofthe issues at stake, and to prescribe the necessary ritual remedies, depends not onlyupon referential knowledge but also on other, non-inferential forms of knowing thatdraw neither on the explicit value of the signs appearing in the shells nor on the

diviners knowledge of his clients plans, situation, or affliction.Mandinka-speakers refer to this general abiltity of the diviner to come to

know and reveal what could not be known from the consultational context itself ashaving force (ka semboo soto). On the one hand, this is a metaphorical expressionthat transfers the phenomenon of physical force to the domains of knowledge andunderstanding. On the other hand, however, ka semboo soto can also be understoodin a more direct sense in so far as it denotes a force that, although may be not


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physically tangible, is nevertheless conceived of as a real quality of the diviner,manifesting itself with every succesful divinatory performance. The difficulty herelies of course in the fact that while from the perspective of the client a quality such as semboo is perceived as deriving from the authority of the diviners interpretatory performance, a notion such as force is difficult to describe and grasp in itself. This isespecially true because the expression of having force as a description of thediviners ability seems to stand on its own without further symbolic detailing orcharacterisation of neither the force itself nor the act of divination. Unlike in other

cultural contexts where the diviners revelatory ability is for instance compared to theability of the hunting dog to sniff out what cannot be seen with the human eye (cf. forinstance De Boeck & Devisch 1994, and Devisch 1999: 93-116 for a detaileddiscussion of the multiple symbolic and cosmological dimensions at play andelaborated upon in Luunda basket divination and mediumnistic divination among theYaka in southwest Congo), the notion of semboo is generally not described in moredetail and does thus offer little additional hints as to the nature or character of thediviners ability to divine.

Pragmatically, this ability of the diviner to know how to interpretcertain signs in a specific situation even without having contextual knowledge abouthis client can perhaps best be attributed to and described as an intuitional insight intothe meaning of the divinatory patterns of the cast shells. An intuition that is graduallydeveloped through the practitioners growing experience and his increasing trust inhis own immediate apprehension of the nature of a specific case. Of course, such a pragmatic construction of the force of the diviner as divinatory intuition just replacesone unfamiliar notion (force) with another, may be more familiar one (intuition),without actually being able to reach to the core or possible origin of the phenomenon,

let alone arriving at some kind of scientific explanation of it.In this context, it is also interesting to reconsider the fact that in the

Senegambian context, as well as in countless other divinatory traditions, the divinersability to reveal the causes or probable developments of the issues at stake isconceived of and explained in terms of his ability to communicate with spirit entities.Could it not be argued that the fact that the ability of the diviner is so often coined interms of contact with spirits or the divine results from the fact that divinatory insight


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has always been felt and experienced as originating outside of ones ownconsciousness? Or, in other words, could it not be argued that the cultural assumptionof the existence of an external agency involved in divination is the result a historical-cultural process of postcognitional and postexperiential rationalization of anexperience of knowing for which even the practitioners themselves had often nowords? Such a hypothesis is of course highly speculative and basically impossible to prove. It is, however, interesting to note that a certain inclination to assume anexternal rather than internal origin of certain types of knowing cannot only be found

in the context of divination but is also refelcted in the etymological connotations ofmany of the words used in different European languages to describe intuitional insightin general. An inspiration, for instance, derived from the Latininspiratio, andunderstood as a sudden, unexpected idea, is, literally, not the product of the mind butthat what is breathed into it. Similarly, the German term Eingebung , usuallytranslated as a sudden idea, inspiration, or intuition, literally refers to somethinggiven-into, i.e. put into ones mind, apparently from the outside.

Summarizing the above, it becomes clear that the divinatory performance, althoughreferred to in the Senegambian context as an act of viewing, looking at, orlooking for ( jubeero in Mandinka, seet in Wolof), should not primarily beunderstood as direct visual perception nor does it consist in a linear reading of thedivinatory signs appearing in the cast shells.22 Instead, divination forms a complex process of interpretation and understanding based upon the individual divinerstechnical ability, his general as well as case-specific insight into the clients moral andmaterial life conditions, his experience, and intuition.

I would argue that this description of the interpretative process as based on

both inferential (contextual knowledge, reading of signs, interpreting the clients

22 It is interesting to note, however, that the term intuition, derived from the Latin (in-)tueri for looking at, gazing at, contemplating, refers to a visual mode of perception asthe basis of its working in the same way as the terms that designate the act of divining inMandinka and Wolof. In this sense, the term intuition cannot only serve as a technicalterm to describe the mode of consciousness that lies at the basis of the divinatory process but could even be used as a literal translation of the Mandinka and Wolof terms fordivination: jubeeroo and seet.


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individual reactions during consultation, etc) as well as more intuitional ways ofknowing is useful for at least two reasons. First, by indicating that cowrie divination(and most other forms of divination) draws upon a technological basis and methodthat can be learned and aquired, one avoids an overly mystifying reading of divinationas if it were a way of knowing uncomparable to other, normal modes of cognition.And second, by that the insight developed by the diviner during the consulation canneither be reduced to the result of a schematic application of its underlying method,nor to prior contextual knowledge about his client, one avoids the over-rationalization

of the divinatory art. At the center of the divinatory process as a whole will alwaysremain an enigmatic kernel that can not be fully grasped, neither by the observer nor by the diviner himself; an enigmatic kernel, however, which is not necessarily a signof complete epistemic alterity but which is, on the contrary, an essential characteristicof all forms of intuitional knowledge. Understood in such a way it becomes clear thatas a specific form of culturally institutionalized intuition, divination reflectsmodalities of consciousness that are not restricted to the field of divination alone butalso play an important role in the experience of creativity in artistic and scientific production, as well as in the lived experience of interpersonal praxis.23 In this sense,the construction of the diviners force as intuition may at least serve to de-exoticizethe phenomenon and to reveal the probably universal familiarity of those modes ofconsciousness that underly the praxis of divination.

Although the above offers a useful starting point to get an idea of what divinatory praxis is, I would argue at the same time that the exclusive description of divination interms of its formal principles and how the diviner is able to apply these principles,however nuanced and detailed, must always remain incomplete. It overlooks the fact

that what is most relevant about divination for the persons involved in the divinatoryencounter is not the artistry or nature of the diviners performance but itsconsultational quality. Divination, in other words, is subjectively significant primarily because it responds to the inquiry of the client or patient about his most urgent personal concern or need (hajoo), and allows for the identification of the ritual

23 Cf. for instance the important role played by intuitional understanding in the context ofmidwifery and homebirth in the United States (Davis-Floyd & Davis 1996).


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remedies required for its solution. Consequently, from the perspective of the client,how a specific technique has to be used, how the divinatory instrument is read, andwhether this interpretative process depends upon technical, intuitional, or other formsof knowledge is almost irrelevant as long as the diviner is able to locate his clientsconcern, to analyze his situation, and to point out the necessary ritual remedies. Anapproach that focuses on divinatory method and the person of the diviner helps tounderstand divination as a(n) (extra)cognitive epistemic activity but it falls short tounderstand how divination actually affects the subject in his or her personal situation

as a consultational and potentially therapeutic encounter.In order to understand the significance of divination as consultation it is thus

necessary to move away from questions concerning the technical aspects of specificmethods, the person of the diviner and the nature of divinatory cognition. Instead, onehas to ask how divination works in relation to the subject that takes recourse to it.What kind of experience is constituted by the actual unfolding of the divinatory performance? How can the immediate unfolding of the divinatory process asconsultation be considered in itself, i.e. apart from the interpretatory agency of thediviner? What characterizes the discursive landscape that is generated in thedivinatory event? What kind of world comes into being through the divinatory performance?

Immediacy and Emphasis as Modalities of Divinatory Signification

Drawing on the pioneering works concerning religious symbolism by Durkheim,Freud, and Jung, but also on French and American semiology (especially De

Saussure, Peirce), the works of Lvi-Strauss (structuralism), and symbolicanthropology (Geertz, Schneider), one of the central insights of anthropologicalstudies regarding the working and efficacy of ritual has been the recognition of theimportant role played by symbol and metaphor in the way ritual creates meaning and brings about the transformational changes it aims at. While different authors havefocused on different aspects of symbolic meaning production, ranging from theorectic/emotional, the unconscious, and the somatic, to the ideological and social,


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there seems to be a consensus amongst most authors that much of the efficacy ofritual action depends upon the power of symbols and metaphors to influence andshape reality by transferring aspects of meaning from one area of signification andexperience to another.24 Confronted with this pivotal importance of symbolism andsymbolic mediation for the understanding of ritual processes, one of the maindifficulties in understanding how divination unfolds its meaning in the Senegambiancontext lies in the relative scarcity of symbols and metaphors in the unfolding of thedivinatory process.

Although the language of the cowries remains symbolic in that the lines ofshells appearing in a particular lay-out may be conceived of as symbolicallyrepresenting paths or barriers, circles representing the house or the family, etc., thesesymbolic configurations seem not to mediate different dimensions of reality,although they do transfer certain obvious observations made in the realm of physicalobjects (a physical barrier) to the realm of social relations or individual action (a barrier in the divinatory pattern signifying a blockage in ones social relationships,indicating possible disputes, conflicts, and enmities). This more immediate and directrather than symbolic way of signification in Senegambian divination is enhanced bythe fact that the patterns or constellations that the diviner observes in the lay-out ofthe cast shells are only very occasionally brought to the attention of the client. Inother words, while divinatory interpretation as a process of reading the signs(tamansee) that appear through the manipulation of different divinatory instruments(cowries, roots, geomantic drawings, etc.) relies upon the diviners ability to grasp themeaning of symbolic constellations, these semiotic constellations are almost never brought into the dicursive space of the divinatory encounter as such, i.e. as symbols ormetaphors, but merely tend to be presented in their derived, divinatory meaning.

Although it is possible that a diviner points out a certain position within the lay-out to

24 The bibliography on this classic field of anthropological analysis is vast. Importantethnographic studies in Africanist anthropology include for instance Evans-Pritchard1956, Turner 1967, Fernandez 1983, and Devisch 1993. For good reviews of the differenttheoretical developments cf. for instance Ortner 1973 and Devisch 1985a. For morereferences and a useful didactic introduction cf. the first section of the second part ofLambek 2002.


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demonstrate to the client that what he states is not his invention but is revealed by thecowries themselves, most clients are not able to recognize the position referred to, todistuinguish it from other signs, or to attribute a specific meaning to it. On the level ofthe explicit divinatory pronouncement it seems that the mode of signification of thesigns referred to is more indexical than metaphorical, simply indicating the categoryof the issues at stake without necessarily bringing other dimensions of meaning into play.

A similar observation concerning a relatively direct rather than symbolic

mode of divinatory signification can be found in Turners famous account of Ndembu basket divination (Turner 1975 [1961]). Citing C.G. Jungs distinction between signsas analogous or abbreviated expressions of aknown thing () and a symbol as the best possible expression of a relativelyunknown fact, a fact, however, that is none theless recognized or postulated as existing, (Jung 1949: 602, cited by Turner), Turnerstated that the objects of divination [i.e. the objects used in Ndembu basketdivination] have many of the characteristics of signs (Turner 1975 [1961]: 207-8). Hecontinues that while, according to Jung, symbols are alive and pregnant withmeaning because of being attempts to express that what seems to escape more direct,non-symbolic wording, the symbols or objects used in basket divinationapproximate to the status of signs () become objects of cognition and cease progressively to be objects of emotion (Turner 1967: 208-9).

Against this description of Ndembu basket divination as primarily cognitiveactivity, De Boeck and Devisch have argued that the significance of Central Africandivination is far more situated in the realm of the symbolic than Turners accountsuggests (De Boeck & Devisch 1994). De Boeck and Devisch demonstrate in greatdetail how in the Central African divinatory traditions of the Luunda and Yaka of

Zaire, divination initiates and unfolds as a highly complex symbolic process in whichthe person of the diviner, the materials and objects used for divination, and thediviners speech all allude to and evoke different dimensions of the cosmological,social, and bodily orders that make up the cultural lifeworlds in these contexts. Thesymbolism employed and manifesting itself in divinatory initiation, action, andspeech among Luunda and Yaka is thereby of such a profound order that it can best be described as an encompassing process of world-making that performatively


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generates relationships with bodies, people, and the cosmos which cannot be fullycaptured by discursive, representational and cognitive levels of interpretation. In thissense, according to De Boeck and Devisch, the divinatory praxis and the sequentialanalysis of the particular anamnesis in the sance bring forth in a highly corporeal andsensory way the meaningful creation of a new integrative order which interlinks body-self, social body and cosmos. (De Boeck & Devisch: 128). A world-makingthat, as Devisch writes in another text, seems to finally aim at the creation of anoriginal matrix-like space that echoes and reenacts the primordial oneness of the

cosmos (Devisch 1999: 94). How does this account of divination as symbolic world-making relate to the rather direct, and almost a-symbolical mode of signification thatseems, at least from the perspective of the client, to characterize Senegambiandivinatory praxis? Maybe this direct and referential rather than symbolic way ofsignification is restricted to cowrie-divination? Or is it also apparent in geomantic(ramalo) and other forms of divination used in the Senegambian context?

In the short introduction to Islamic geomancy as practised by Mandinkadiviners in Senegal and Gambia which I presented in the first chapter, it was shownthat each of the different geomantic signs, as well as their positions in the geomanticchart, bears a specific name, often referring to prophets ackknowledged in the Islamictradition (Yusuf, Adamu, Muhamadu al-Mahdi, etc.). At the same time, each of thesigns, as well as the positions in the geomantic system they are usually associatedwith, is attributed a specific field of divinatory meaning (the heart or Self of the person, paternal relatives, wealth, illness, death, etc.). Not surprisingly, the divinatorymeaning of a specific sign often relates to the hagiographic properties of the propheticcharacter that gives it its name. The sign of Isa (Jesus), for instance, is associated withillness because of his ability to heal. Ayuba (Job), in turn, is associated with death as

he almost died when put to test by God with severe illness, whileSuleiman (Salomon)is commonly seen as representing wealth because of the wealth and prosperity he wasgranted by God.25

25 In the case of Isa, Ayuba, andSuleiman, the relation between the divinatory meaning ofthe sign and the hagiographic connotations of the prophetic figure whose name it bearsseemed to be common knowledge for most diviners. In the case of the other thirteen signs,the relation between the divinatory meaning of the sign and the connotations of its name


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The same relation between the name of a sign and its divinatory meaning can be found in certain charts used in divination by the use of a string of prayer beads(tasabayo la jubeeroo). In this form of divination, the client is asked to choose one ofthe beads (keso) from a string of prayer beads (Mand.tasabayo, derived from theArabic tasbih). After the client has chosen a bead, the diviner will count theremaining beads back to the beginning of the string (which is indicated by a larger bead in the middle of the loop). The diviner hereby counts in rounds of sixteen so thatthe result, independent of the absolute numerical position of the bead that has been

picked out, will always be a number between one and sixteen which then correspondsto a chart of sixteen sections (cf. the Illustration 2.4) that closely resembles the systemof sixteen signs, and sixteen Doors or Houses characteristic for Islamic geomancy.

What is striking in the application of such a divinatory chart, as well as, moregenerally, in geomantic divination, is that although most diviners are aware of therelation between the meaning of some of the signs and the life-history and theologicalimportance of the prophetic figure whose name it bears and whom it represents, therelation between the sign and the figure it represents is hardly ever mentioned, letalone elaborated upon during consultation. In other words, the appearance of aspecific sign does not normally unfold its potential symbolic meaningfulness as anexamplary or paradigmatic life-history allowing the client to identify with therespective prophetic character and to be drawn into the dynamics of its religiousconnotations. Instead, the diviner will directly refer to the meaning of the differentsigns or, in cowrie divination, to the meaning of the different positions resulting fromthe casting of the shells. In this sense, in the Senegambian context the meaning of thedivinatory enunciation is neither mediated by specific metaphors engulfing thesubjects consciousness, nor is it based upon a specifically coherent or encompassing

symbolic universe re-enacted through the diviners words. No cosmology is enactedapart from the occasional reference to spirit entities as mediators of the divinatorymessages ( jinno, ruhano) or as agents that somehow interfere with the clients affairs( jinno or, in Wolof-speaking contexts,rab). Instead, in most cases, the divinatory

did not seem to form part of the usual canon of ritual knowledge that most specialistswould be familiar with.


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Illustration 2.4: Divinatory chart of sixteen signs used for divination with a string of prayer beads. The chart was drawn and explained to me by Solo Siss, Mandinkadiviner/marabout and head of the village (alkaloo) of Karantabaa Dutoo Koto in EasternGambia, February 2003.


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Illustration 2.5: Solo Sis. In front of him the divinatory chart reproduced on the previous page.


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enunciation refers directly to the social, economic, psychological, and medicalsituations and conditions of the inquiring subject. Little or no symbolic elaboration isinvolved. What characterizes the divinatory enunciation most is its immediacy, thefact that what the diviner perceives of his clients situation does not need to bemediated by complex symbolic or metaphorical cultural structures of meaning but can be pronounced as directly as it seems to show itself for the diviner in the divinatorysigns.

In this context, one has also to bear in mind that the diviners succesfulidentification of ones concerns forms the main emic criterium for the success andquality of a consultation. Successful divination is not only, as often assumed byoutsiders, a question of whether the predictions made by the diviner will actuallyrealize themselves in the clients personal future (although the fact that things turnedout as predicted is of course a point often highlighted when people give an account oftheir personal experience with divinatory consultation in retrospect). As an expressionand result of the diviners ability to identify certain relevant issues within theunavoidably much larger field of his clients subjective, lived reality, the divinatoryenunciation can, in this regard, be understood as a process of epistemic emphasis; a process of gradually making visible of those areas of life most relevant for the clientin his or her current situation.

But what exactly is the quality of this process? What is its significance? Andhow does the divinatory enunciation unfold its impact?

The Emergence of the Noematic Correlate: Divinatory Enunciation as

Ontogenetic Resonance

In the previous chapter I have argued that through the articulation of the intention(nganiyo) by the client at the beginning of the divinatory consultation, and theidentification and consideration of this intentional concern through divinatory procedure, Senegambian divination constitutes an intentional cultural space thatimplies and responds to the subject in relation to his or her specific and situated


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personal intentions, longings, expectations, plans, concerns, and predicaments.Through subsequent explorations into the internal logic of Islamic geomancy as practised by Mandinka diviners in Senegal and Gambia, it became apparent that theinquiring subjects reason for divinatory consultation should be understood as beingdeeply rooted in a motivational background of subjective woundedness or trauma(niitooroo). What is the consequence of the pronouncedly phenomenological andsubject-oriented perspective on Senegambian divination, pursued in the first chapterof this study, for the understanding of the immediacy and presencing quality of the

divinatory enunciation? How does the interpretation of divination as intentional spacerelate to the general significance of the form and content of the divinatory pronouncement?

The answer to the above questions comes into view if we look at thedivinatory enunciation in ways similar to the internal logic of the divinatoryencounter, i.e. precisely as a response to the subjects intention, desire, wish, longing,or affliction, or, in other words, to thenganiyo of the subject noematically defined bythe concern or need (hajoo) to which it refers, and as a response to the motivational background ofniitooroo that forms the basis of the clients inquiry. As an answer andresponse to the noematically defined intention of the subject, the divinatoryenunciation can be understood as the discursive emerging of the noematic correlate ofthe subjects intentional concern that, pronounced silently upon the divinatory parapherenalia, formed the main reason for and object of the divinatory inquiry fromthe onset.

Formulating this relation between the initial intentional condition of thesubject and the significance of the divinatory enunciation in a less technical andabstract manner, one could say that an inquiry concerning, for instance, a medical

condition, plans for migration (travel), or conjugal difficulties, becomes meaningfulfor the client only in so far as the this intentional concern actually reappears in thedivinatory signs, is brought out by the diviner, and elaborated upon in such a way thatit contributes to the answering of the clients questions. If health, travel, and conjugalrelationships would not be referred to in the divinatory enunciation, althoughthey are,in the particular case, the clients primary concern, the statements of the divinerwould be of little or no importance to him. Unless, of course, the client has the


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impression that the issues addressed by the diviner refer not to himself but to someoneelse he knows well, or that he touches upon issues that were not taken intoconsideration at the beginning of the consultation, but which form nevertheless aninextricable part of the subjects wider existential sphere of concern, but maybe in anunconscious way.

The crucial aspect here is to realize that the divinatory enunciation is not justsignificant as a cultural document reflecting important social or symbolic structures ofa particular culture, but because it is significant for the clientin his or her individual

concern. Although this aspect is evident, it remains crucial to fully acknowledge this point in order to be able to grasp the significance of the divinatory enunciation notonly as a cultural institution or tradition but as a concrete possibility of experiencethat realizes itself with every succesful consultation. In more phenomenologicalterms, significant for the client means that the meaning of the divinatoryconsultation must be seen in its relation to the specific intentional concern of thesubject as a result of the subjects specific actualization of intentional being, or, interms of Heideggers existential analytics, as a result of the being-in-the-world andconcern (Sorge) of the subject as the main ontological characteristic of humanexistence (cf. Heidegger 1993 [1927]: esp. 12, 13, and 39-41). The consequence ofthis subject- or Daseins-relatedness of divinatory meaning for the phenomenologicalanalysis of the significance of the divinatory enunciation is at least twofold. On theone hand, and this summarizes what has been said in this subsection of the text so far,the significance of the divinatory enunciation depends upon whether it is able tolocate, articulate, and bring into view the subjects intention, and to concretize thoseaspects of the subjects concern that were unclear and unsure for the client at themoment he or she decided to take recourse to divinatory consultation and which were

thus central to the expectation of the subject when entering into the divinatoryencounter. In this regard, in order to be meaningful for the inquiring subject, thedivinatory enunciation has to respond to the specific personal longings, expectations,anxieties, concerns, and predicaments that make up the concrete intentional situationof the subject. It is this subject-related specificity that makes the enunciationimmediately significant for the inquiring subject. The question that arises here,however, is whether a focus on the specificity of the enunciation, while perhaps


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adequately accounting for the importance of the details of a concrete enunciation,does not at the same time inhibit us to grasp the experiential quality of the divinatoryenunciation as a whole?

In regard to the broader meaningfulness of the divinatory enunciation, it iscrucial to realize that even those topics and aspects that are perhaps not answeringdirectly to the subjects specific intentional concern do nevertheless simultaneouslyevoke and reflect a complex topography of issues, situations, and concerns thatalltogether make up the subjects cultural lifeworld in a much more encompassing

sense. Following this line of thought, I would argue that the general meaningfulnessof the divinatory enunciation can be described as the result of the unfolding of aspecific discursive process which is simultaneously mimetic, poetic, and ontogenetic.The term mimetic is hereby used in a twofold way. On the one hand, the notion ofmimesis is not meant to indicate that the divinatory representation simply representsreality as it is (which is, ultimately, impossible) but that it situates itself in continuitywith the world as it is perceived, understood, presupposed, and generally experienced by the individual subject requesting divination. Characteristic and a prerequisite forthe meaningfulness of the divinatory enunciation is, in other words, a certaincontinuity between the subjects cultural lifeworld and the content of the enunciation.On the other hand, and here I follow recent insights in literary theory (cf. for instanceSpariosu 1984 and Scholz 1997), the term mimetic also implies that, as a discursive process, the representation that is taking place in divination is not just an imitation ofreality but posits the world in a distinct way, i.e. in a way that is specific to thecultural logic and experience implicit to the divinatory praxis. By positing the worldin a mimetic motion that is not fully identical but nevertheless necessarily incontinuity with prior conceptions of the lifeworld, the divinatory enunciation has the

potential to renew and reshape the subjects understanding of reality without breakingaway from the subjects lived experience. This potential of the divinatory enunciationto add to, modify, and potentially enlarge the subjects understanding of a wholerange of important areas of experience can be understood as its poetic dimension.Poetic not just in the sense of being evocative of certain aspects of reality in certainways, but in the more literal sense of poiesis as a making, i.e. a bringing-into-presenceand revealing of realities and aspects of reality that are maybe already consciously


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part of the subjects life world, while at the same time also providing new perspectives to and renewing familiar realities. Seen in such a way it becomes clearthat, constantly oscillating between a static reproduction of the world as it is knownand the dynamics of renewing and remaking reality, the divinatory process makes thatthe subjective and sociocultural representation and understanding of reality graduallystart to encompass previously unrealized aspects and dimensions.26 In this regard,divination constitutes a discursive praxis in which by naming, referring to, andarticulating different ontological regions, fields of action, and personal conditions

such as the house, travel, work, illness and the body, dreams, or the heart and themind of the person the already existing reality is not only reflected but also shaped indecisive ways.

Phenomenologically, these two dimensions of the meaningfulness of thedivinatory enunciation as both intention- as well as lifeworld-related response to thesubjects situated concern, do not represent opposed principles but formcomplementary actualisations of the same ontological disposition of enmeshedness inand openness to the world that forms one of the central tenets of phenomenologicaltheory, both in Husserls writings on intentionality and lifeworld, as well as inHeideggers existential analytics. Both these bodies of work share an emphasis on the being-in-the-world of the subject as the main ontological characteristic of humanexistence.27 In other words, the general meaningfulness of the divinatory enunciation

26 The fact that the relation between the intentional concern of the subject and the generalrepresentation of reality in the divinatory enunciation is dynamic rather than static, alreadyindicates that part of the significance of the divinatory encounter lies in its relation to (thegrowth of) the subjects understanding of his or her personal situation. The hermeneuticquality of the divinatory encounter will be dealt with in more detail in the following

chapter.27 Husserl developed the notion of the lifeworld in Die Krisis der europischenWissenschaften und die transzendentale Phnomenologie(1976 [1954]), as a critiquetowards the subject-irrelative, objectivist logic of the natural sciences. Husserl argued thatthe seeming objectivity of scientific reality is the outcome of specific prereflective, and prescientific modalities of experiencing and action (such as for instance the bias towardsobject-ivity in visual perception and in the instrumental use and making of objects astools) and is therefore necessarily linked to the subjective nature of human reality andhistory from which, in order to avoid and counter the loss of sense (Sinnverlust ) that lies at


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as a mimetic and poetic discursive field, as well as the specific meaningfulness of thedivinatory enunciation as response to the clients intentional concern (thenganiyo ofthe subject and its noematic correlate [hajoo]) both rest upon the embeddedness of thesubject in his or her own lifeworld precisely because lifeworld and subjectiveintentionality are not separate entities but correlates. Divination, in this sense,constitutes an encompassing lifeworld-poiesis or genesis, an ontogenetic response tothe intentionality of the subject as an apriori disposition that concretizes itself in thespecific questions, longings, and afflictions that lie at the basis of the subjects

motivation for divinatory consultation.In this regard, the meaningfulness of the divinatory enunciation can be

conceptualized as the result of the interplay between the content of the enunciationand a continuum of varying densities of subjective responsiveness that characterizesand results out of the subjects varying degrees of intentional enmeshedness in theworld. Seen as a field of meaning that unfolds in the interstitial space of lifeworld andsubjectivity, both of which already imply each other, divination comes into view as anontogenetic resonance. A resonance between the subject and the lifeworld in whichthe intentional concern of the subject is identified and located, and in which, at thesame time, the lifeworld reoriginates in its meaningfulness precisely because of its being articulated not in an abstract way but in relation to and for the subject.

the basis of the crisis of the European sciences, it should not be severed. Combined withHusserls earlier reflections on the intentional nature of human consciousness, the conceptof the lifeworld comes into view as a specific phenomenological notion that is able todescribe the immediacy and wholeness of the subjective world as the totality of the

possible noematic correlates implied in the intentional being of the subject. In this sense,the notion of the lifeworld demonstrates that the world that we live in should not beconceived of as a separate entity, an object that may somehow be located outside of theconscious subject. Instead, from a phenomenological perspective, the world that we live inis not objective, but subjective-relational and can only be experienced in this way, i. e. by ourselves through our selves. For Husserl (and phenomenological theory in general),the world as lifeworld ( Lebenswelt ) is, consequently, not the object but the ground andhorizon of all consciousness.


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In this and the preceding chapter I have focused on the locating of the force of thedivinatory encounter in the phenomenological and cultural quality of the divinatory process as intentional space (Chapter One) and resonant field of cultural signification(this chapter). In the following chapter, it will be shown that the process ofresponding to and resonating with the subjects intential concerns and personallifeworld is not mechanical or predetermined but realizes itself in a deeplyhermeneutical and dialogic praxis that is based and relies upon the active personal andintersubjective involvement and engagement of both client and diviner.


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Divination as Hermeneutic Encounter: Reflections onUnderstanding, Dialogue, and the Intersubjective Foundationof Divinatory Consultation

While the diviner executes his art, drawing, calculating, and interpreting geomantic patterns, reflecting on and analyzing the positions of the cast shells, or, in the case of

listikaaroo, the Islamic art of dream divination, contemplating on the relation betweenhis dream visions and the situation of his client, the client waits for and listens to thediviners findings. As the diviner succeeds to gradually address the issues andquestions most significant for his client, different paths of thought and reflectionappear and start to shape and renew the subjects understanding of his or her own personal situation. In this regard, from the start of the first divinatory pronouncementsand through the gradual unfolding of the divinatory inquiry, the intentional space ofthe divinatory encounter increasingly acquires a hermeneutic quality.

Drawing on the documentation of several divinatory enunciations, the waythey unfold, as well as explanations from diviners and their clients concerning themeaning and nature of divinatory consultation, this chapter aims at analyzing thedevelopment and experiential quality of the hermeneutic dimension of the divinatoryencounter. The analysis will consist of three parts: First, it will be argued that thehermeneutic dimension of the divinatory encounter is as fundamental to the divinatoryworking as the ontological disposition of intentionality and lifeworld-relatedness thatformed the focus of the preceding chapters. Second, it will be demonstrated how inmost cases the enunciation evolves not in a strictly monologic way but in a relatively

open, dialogic fashion. In the third and last part of the chapter, it will be asked howexactly the hermeneutic and dialogic dimensions of the divinatory encounter relate toeach other and why this relation may be considered crucial for the understanding ofthe full significance of the consultational character of divinatory praxis.


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Understanding Divinatory Enunciations

In the preceding chapter, the working of the divinatory enunciation was described as aresonance between enunciation, lifeworld, and the intentional concern of the inquiringsubject. I argued that the way in which the divinatory process of enunciation respondsto the intentional concern of the subject and his or her enmeshment in the lifeworld is brought about through a direct and immediate rather than symbolic evocation of thoseregions and aspects of lived reality most relevant for the subject at the moment of

inquiry. But how exactly is this resonance realized? Again it is useful to differentiate between the lifeword- and the intentionality-related dimensions of the resonance thatis brought about by the divinatory encounter. While the general meaningfulness of theenunciation as lifeworld poiesis is the result of the parallels betweenthe referentialcontent and moral implications of the divinatory enunciation, on the one hand, andtheworld of the subject shaped through habitual praxis and lived experience, on the other,the relation between ones own intentional concern and the general content of theenunciation has to be realized by the subject him- or herself, through his or her ownactive understanding of the divinatory pronouncement. In other words, while theresonance between lifeworld and enunciation envelops the subject in a moreimmediate, prereflective way, the resonance between enunciation and subjectiveconcern is always necessarily the result of the subjects own understanding of theenunciation, and not just of a simple objective coinciding between the referentialcontent of the enunciation and the content of the subjects intentional concern. Whatis meant by this becomes clearer if we look at a further example of a divinatoryenunciation, its overt content, and the way the enunciation is understood by theinquiring subject him- or herself. The example consists in another geomantic

enunciation, pronounced by Abdoulaye Karamba Faty, my host in the Casamancewhom I introduced in the previous chapter. The session of which the followingenunciation is the result, however, did not take place in the Casamance but in Dakar,during one of his regular working sojourns in the capital. Because the client did notunderstand Mandinka, the pronouncement was translated phrase by phrase into Wolof by a mediator. Due to this, Karamba Faty does not directly address his client but


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rather asks his translator to tell him (a fo aye), i.e. the client, what the geomanticcalculation has revealed. The enunciation is reproduced in its entirety.

Example 3.1: Geomantic enunciation pronounced by Abdoulaye Karamba Faty,Dakar, July 2003.

Jubeeroo beteyaata. Ning Allah kiidita ala,a ka meng ininga baa soto la.Bari a be niikuyaa nding soto la.

A be suboo sang na janni a be taa.Subukero, a yaa sadaa kambaani ndingola.A fo aye ning Allah kiidita alaning aye wo bondi,wo be kela aye kayira le ti.A fo aye ning a yaa dorong,

a ya long ko ye sadaa bo le,

a kanata le;wo be kela aye kayira leti.A fo aye a se kodoo fanangning tiyaa keeroo talaa dindingol teema.

Kodoo aye meng soto, janni a be taa.Tiyaa kaama.A fo aye a be firing na baake.

A fo aye diyamoo.Diyaamoo funtita a ye musu kuwo to.

A fo aye ko ning aye ing bondi sadaa tidorong,tiyaa kaama,

The divination is good.If God is willing,that what he searches,he will obtain it.But there is a small annoyance [lit. sth.causing bitterness to the soul].He will buy some meat before leaving.Uncooked meat, he will give it as sadaa to a little boy.Tell him that if God is willing,if he distributes that,it will cause him peace.Tell him that as soon as he sees that [the

annoyance],knowing that he has distributed the sadaa,he will (already) have escaped (from it);that will cause him peace.Tell him also that he has to divide themoney and the groundnuts between somechildren.The money that he has got, before leaving.Groundnuts.Tell him he will be very fortunate [i.e.rich].Tell him, betrayal.Betrayal has come up [in the geomanticsigns] concerning a woman.Tell him once he has distributed [lit.taken out] the sadaa,the groundnuts,


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a fo aye jamfaa le mu,a be kela a ye kayira le ti.A baa jela a aa lameng yaa long koa te kela probleemo ti.A fo aye a be firing na baake.A ning aye i wakiliaye ala dookuwo muta ala hajoo leti.Ala aato taa beto be jee.

A fo aye ing niikuuyaa,wo mu kayra leti fanang.

A ba jeela le.Bari suboo wo ma diyaa-kuyaa le tifo a ye wo sang. Parce que a funtitaate fango la jaata kendeyoo le to.A la kuu kolengo [koleyaaringo] fanang,a bee be cikala a kang.

Parce que taama silooning aato taa.A fango yaa long ko a be ing meng beeto,a avancemango sotola jee.A foo a yeing diyaamoo kuwo fananging,wo le sadaa mu tiyoo ti aning kodoo ti.Wo le mu ala sadaa ti.A be daameng,ala kuwool bee be beteyaala.Dimbayaa keeaa fanang,mmang tana je jee.A fo aye, jawuyaa meng be ala,a fo aye ning Allah kiidita ala,wo safee meng be a bala,a fo ayetoujours dorong a ye tara a bala.Jawuyaa warta.A fo aye ning Allah kiidita ala,

tell him the betrayal,it [the sadaa] will cause his peace.He will see it with his own eyes that,as you know,it will not be a problem.Tell him that he will be very fortunate.And he has to do everything to considerhis work as his own concern.His good advancement lies there [i.e. inhis work].Tell him that annoyance,it will also be peace [i.e. be of nonegative consequence].He will see that.But the meat, at all costs [lit. sweet or bitter],tell him that he must buy it. Parce que [because] that has come upin the context of his own state of health.His difficulties also,

all of it will vanish. Parce que [because] the path of traveland advancement.He himself knows all he is engaged in,he will have advancement there.Also tell him, concerning the talking,The sadaa for that is groundnuts andmoney.That is his sadaa.There where he is,All his affairs will be fine.His family matters also,I havent seen any trouble there.Tell him, the enemy he has,tell him if God is willing,the amulet that he has,tell him to wear ittoujours [always].[Because] the enemy is great.Tell him that if God is willing,


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Allah baa maakoyi la.A fo aye inuu le funtita ala kuwo to.

God will help him.Tell him that, concerning his affairs, thatis what has come up.

If one looks at the above enunciation in terms of its overt referential content, one cannote that the enunciation concentrates on three different but closely related aspects:First, possible obstacles and dangers that might inhibit the client to realize what he isconcerned with (an annoyance,diyamoo, an enemy). Second, the fields of concernin which these obstacles may appear or which seem, from the reading of thegeomantic calculation, of particular relevance for the client (his work, family, andhealth, a woman, as well as, maybe, migration or entrepreneurial travel indicated by apath of travel). And third, the objects that the client should take out as sadaa inorder to avoid and counter these dangers (uncooked meat, groundnuts, and money, allof it to be distributed to children in the street). If we look at these statements in termsof their respective specificity, one notes that while the ritual measures that should betaken by the client are precisely indicated, the enunciation seems to be less preciseabout the exact nature of the clients concerns and the concrete difficulties the client

might be facing in the future. From the viewpoint of the client, however, the meaningof the enunciation is evident. What it refers to is clear. Asked about the proceedingsand the content of the consultation that had just finished, the client, a young man inhis late twenties, gave the following explanations which are reproduced verbatim inorder to show the extent to which the different elements of the geomantic enunciationare perceived as relating directly to the clients personal situation.


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Example 3.2: Postconsultational interview, given by a client of Abdoulaye KarambaFaty, July 2003, immediately after the consultation. (Explanations were originallygiven in French and are here presented in their English translation. The interviewersquestions are separated from the clients explanations by double slashes):

When he gave me the pen, thats so that I ask about the sacrifices that I should do.28 Iasked God that he may enlighten me about everything I do. My future. My work, myfamily, and my health.Yes, these three things.Then, the old man has taken the pen and he has written [i.e. executed the geomanticcalculations].First of all, he asked me to do the sacrifices. That concerns the place where I work.Everything that could happen to me there, if I do the sacrifices, it will not happen tome. At another place, there is a girl that plots against me.Also in that regard, he told me (necessary) sacrifices so that it cannot happen to meany longer.// What were these sacrifices? //

The sacrifices?Groundnuts.(Concerning the situation) where I work, I have to take out [i.e. give or distribute]meat. There also, there are people that dont like me. What can I say? They dontwant me to work with them. Its a question of meanness. Because we work theretogether. Before, I supervised everyone. Because the old man took me on, Isupervised everything. And I did that correctly. It is only that people always wantsomething that the other has not. What I want to say is that If one works It is as ifI worked with B. [his friend], well, I want you to pay me more than him. You cant

take these things serious If you work, I have to receive the same payment that he

28 The term sacrifice is one of three terms used by Francophone Senegales to translatethe term sadaa (derived from the Arabic sadaqa) or, as in this case, its Wolof equivalent( sarax). The most frequently heard translation of these three is charity (charit); thetranslation of sadaa/sarax as sacrifice ( sacrifice) is less frequent while its translation asoffering (offrande) is rare. The different layers of meaning alluded to by of these threedifferent translations and the cultural significance of the practice of sadaa will be dealtwith in Chapter Six.


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has. Because we work always on the same construction site, from eight to four, so wehave to get the same salary. That what I do is what he does. So,

ramalu geomancy divination

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