Zeitlyn - Finding Meaning in The Text - PRocess of Interpretation in Text Based Divination - 2001

Finding Meaning in the Text: The Process of Interpretation in Text-Based Divination
Author(s): David Zeitlyn

Source: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Jun., 2001), pp.
225-240
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
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FINDING MEANING IN THE TEXT:
THE PROCESS OF INTERPRETATION IN
TEXT-BASED DIVINATION
DAVID ZEITLYN
University of Kent
Some systems of divination are used to select particular sections of text, which are typically
arcane and erudite, in which lies the answer to the particular, pressing problems of the client.
Celebrated examples of such systems are the Chinese I Ching and the Yoruba
IfN.
Werbner's
work on Kalanga and Tswapong divination provides a case-study of the detailed praxis in
such systems. Diviners have a multiple role when a divination technique selects a text. At
each consultation they must satisfy themselves, their client, and their audience that they have
followed the correct procedures to select the text. A second stage follows. The client has a
particular question and the selected text was not composed as a specific answer to it. Inter-
pretation is required to satisfy the client that the question has been answered. The diviner
thus plays the role of indigenous critic, a role both similar to and different from that of lit-
erary critics in the Western tradition. The concept of 'dialogic' used by Barber in her analy-
sis ofYoruba praise poetry is taken to illustrate similarities and differences between diviner
and critic.
Divination has been consistently represented as a stepping-stone between pon-
dering a problem and acting to resolve it, whether by ritual action or other-
wise. It is a means of clarifying thought, of answering recondite questions. A
diviner is typically approached by a client with a particular problem: a child
is ill, a relative has died. Common problems presented to diviners concern
disputes between spouses or co-wives, or finding or staying in employment.
Many different systems of divination have been and are used around the
world. In some, but by no means all, the results of divination are believed to
lie in a particular text (which is typically arcane and erudite). The text is
selected by a series of operations which themselves may be random, inspired,
or to some degree consciously manipulated. Once selected, the text must be
interpreted or otherwise shown to be relevant to the current issue. This is
achieved through the interaction of diviner and client. Some texts are written,
such as the Chinese I Ching; others are memorized by the diviner, such
as the verses of the Yoruba Ifa. The interpretation of such orature (see Payne
1992) is strictly comparable to that of written texts. Other divination
systems combine texts with other types of divination, as, for example, in the
Northern Tswapong wisdom divination, discussed below.
In some types of divination the client asks a question and the diviner
answers it. In others clients do not reveal the question, and therefore must
C Royal Anthropological Institute 2001.
J.
Roy. anthrop. Inst. (N.S.) 7, 225-240
226 DAVID ZEITLYN
interpret the results of the divinatory process to their own satisfaction. This
is an extreme example of what must happen in every case: the client has to
assess the results, even if they are couched in the clearest and most obviously
relevant language. Clients who believe that the practitioner is a charlatan may
consult another diviner rather than acting on the advice. In assessing the worth
of a diviner, the client interprets the results. This is true of both sides of the
common classification of divinatory types, into 'mechanical' divination,
in which techniques are used to produce answers, and 'inspirational' or
'revelatory' divination, in which the diviner has direct contact with a deity
(often via a form of possession). I have discussed this at some length else-
where (Zeitlyn 1990; 1993; 1995). Divination with texts clarifies issues that
are common to all forms of divination. Diviners who are inspired by direct
contact with a spirit may produce gnomnic utterances that are then inter-
preted by an expert who is not so inspired, and doubts may be raised about
those interpretations. At one level it seems that the utterances are treated as a
text no different from the Ifr verses. The important differences become clear
when we consider repetition. In text-based divination, the same verse may
be found by different diviners and by one diviner on different occasions,
raising the question of how that verse is variously interpreted. Such questions
about consistency do not arise when the utterances are uniquely produced
by the possessed individuals. They may be subject to textual interpretation,
but the interpreters are not, for example, dealing with the same utter-
ances that they interpreted a year ago. A visiting diviner who witnesses the
session will not be equally familiar with the utterances (as they would
with fixed texts) and therefore will be unable to dispute the interpretation
proffered. We may be able to analyse divination with mediums in terms of
a dialogue, possibly involving an intermediary who interprets the utterances
of the possessed medium, and including dialogue with the spirits through
the possessed medium, but there is less room for dispute than when there are
texts in play.
Recent analysis of divination is exemplified by Parkin (1991), Shaw (1991),
and Whyte (1991), all in Peek's collection on African systems of divination,
and more recently by Akinnaso (1995) and Whyte (1997). All emphasize the
interpretative and collaborative work that occurs during the process of divi-
nation as the clients are led to their conclusions. However, when divination
occurs with texts, the types of interpretation differ from those used in divi-
nation without texts. Describing Nyole lamuli divination,Whyte (1991: 160)
says:
Book diviners proceeded by looking up appropriate passages and reading phrases aloud in
Arabic. But since their clients did not understand, they had to translate for them and explain
the relevance of the passages to the client's problem. As the client commented and conveyed
more information, the latnuli might refer to other passages in his books. As in divination by
spirit possession there was a three-way conversation, with the diviner mediating in this case
between the client and the authoritative book.
Whyte's parallel with the interpretation of the utterances of mediums breaks
down on closer examination of the position of diviners over time as they
perform consultations for different clients. A divinatory process may select the
same text on several occasions. Contentiously, this is qualitatively different froin
DAVID ZEITLYN 227
a spirit medium repeatedly giving similar advice. Diviners must satisfy them-
selves and their peers that the text has been interpreted plausibly, that most
diviners would agree with the interpretation given. This effectively adds a
fourth voice in the 'conversation' identified by Whyte. This is represented in
the diagram in Figure 1.
Diviner
Client f Text
Potential audience of other diviners
FIGURE 1. Divination 'conversation' (after Whyte).
When texts figure in divination, diviners have a dual role. At each consul-
tation they must satisfy themselves, their client, and a possible audience that
they have followed the correct procedures to identify the verse or text chosen
by the divination. Then follows a second stage. The client has a particular
question, but the text selected was not composed to answer it. Interpretation
is needed to satisfy the client that the question has been answered.
Some texts are harder to interpret than others. The celebrated and well-
documented' ese verses of Ifr divination often contain detailed prescriptions
of sacrifices performed by the deities and other actors of the myth that the
verses recount. Once a verse has been selected, often it is relatively easy to
see what should be done.2 Clients must act as if they were the deity, and sac-
rifice this colour chicken or that sex goat. Ifa diviners often perform the rites
prescribed, and their divinatory clients go to them for the prescribed treat-
ment. The divination is only the first step in a sequence of ritual treatment.
On the other hand, the I Ching is notoriously opaque and hard to inter-
pret. Recourse has been made to the same texts for thousands of years. Decid-
ing what to make of the gnomic pronouncements of its verses has kept a large
number of diviners occupied (Smith 1991).
A curious contrast is found in Moundang divination: although Moundang
diviners do not interpret texts, their style of divination resembles a text-based
228 DAVID ZEITLYN
system in that the questions asked are fixed and unalterable. The pattern pro-
duced when stones are thrown is interpreted to give a series of yes-or-no
answers to the same set of questions which is asked at every consultation. The
diviner must help the client to see the relevance of the results to the problem
at hand (Adler & Zempleni 1972). Making sense of the answers to formulaic
questions is similar to the task of making sense of an archaic text.
When texts are opaque, as when they are couched in archaic or arcane lan-
guage, then the role of the diviner as literary critic becomes more pronounced.
What is curious is that the same text may be construed as saying different
things on different occasions. Just as interesting is the way in which diviners'
interpretations put the matter into a social and moral context. Yet some divin-
ers are 'international'; that is, they have an international, multi-ethnic clien-
tele, which may make it harder to achieve such a social analysis. Even such
celebrated examples as Chilenga (Redmayne 1970) or the classical oracles of
Apollo can (or could) rely on a community of understanding. If we think of
contemporary Western modes of divination, such as Tarot reading, or the not
unrelated use of horoscopes to make daily decisions, then we see a conmnu-
nity of interest being replaced by self-interest. It is precisely by focusing on
individuals outside a social context that newspaper writers, or writers of
manuals for the interpretation of Tarot cards, are able to capture an interna-
tional audience.
The practice of traditional diviners is different. In the remainder of
this article I consider first Turner's (1975) famous account of Ndembu
divination, in which the fall of a set of objects is interpreted. This serves
as an introduction to Werbner's (1989) work on Northern Tswapong divina-
tion, where objects are used in a similar fashion but with texts being used to
add further layers of meaning. Moreover, unlike Turner, Werbner discusses
actual cases.
From Werbner I turn to Barber's work onYoruba Oriki praise poetry, which
she has analysed using the concepts of dialogic and deconstruction from post-
modern literary criticism. This brings me back to Whyte and the way that
meaning is negotiated through interaction as the divinatory process unfolds.
Divination is not monolithic, so different types of divination exhibit different
types of negotiation. Divination using texts has problems for both diviner and
client that are absent in other types of divination (which, in turn, have their
own specific problems).
Victor Turner and Ndembu divination
Turner's well-known account of basket divination among the Ndembu
describes both the detailed range of meanings associated with each of the divi-
natory objects in the divination basket (Turner 1975: 292-310; for similar
Chokwe material, see Rodrigues de Areia 1985) and the way in which com-
binations of these objects are interpreted to provide clues to the solution of
the problem at hand. Although not a textual form of divination, I consider it
here because the method of casting of lots is similar to that used by the
Kalanga to select texts (discussed below), and because the way individual lots
are treated as units of meaning makes them 'text-like' in some respects (see
DAVID ZEITLYN 229
Hanks 1989, for a more constrained application of Ricoeur's 1971 general
suggestion that action is text-like).'
Ndembu divination is retrospective, revealing the hidden cause of an earlier
misfortune, whether a death or a continuing illness. It is not predictive. There
is much common ground between Turner's account of the use of the divina-
tory basket and the Western practice of Tarot card-reading. Different author-
ities ascribe various related meanings to individual objects or Tarot cards. The
skill of the diviner lies in constructing a coherent, plausible, and satisfying
account from a specific combination or objects or cards (Luhrman 1989: 151-
60, especially 156).
In Ndembu divination, information was gathered before the formal seance
began. This informed the subsequent solution (Turner 1968: 47; 1975:
234-5).4 Diviners use both specific knowledge of the state of affairs in the
client's area and general knowledge of the sorts of problems that prompt
people to go to the trouble and expense of consulting a diviner. Both during
initiation into divination and through experience, diviners acquire skills.
By classifying names into a variety of natural kind types, a set of yes-or-no
questions enables the diviner to identify the name of the afflicted person
quickly. This is impressive to people unfamiliar with the game of 'Twenty
questions', Linnaean classification, and systematic elimination such as is dis-
played in the game 'Mastermind' (in which the aim is to deduce a hidden
arrangement of pegs in as few moves as possible). The results are taken by
Ndembu to be evidence of the hidden power of the diviner (Turner 1968:
34; 1975: 279-80).
Turner's writings on divination share many of the problems of the wider
literature on the subject. We are given a detailed account of the initiation of
a diviner and of the meanings of individual items (kaponya, pl. tuponya) used
during divinatory ritual. Turner also considers the role of divination, and par-
ticularly its social and psychological effects: it serves to summarize discord and
prescribes action to resolve conflict or restore harmony (1975: 241-2). So it
reduces psychological upset. No real cases are described, only hypothetical
examples presented. This is, in part, an inevitable result of the sort of divina-
tion considered. There are no precise rules to be illustrated by a photograph
or drawing of a particular pattern. Any pattern produced by objects in the
winnowing-basket can be taken to illustrate both Turner's points and my own.
Consider the kaponya called yitvepu (possessions). These pieces of calabash can
represent the possessions a woman takes to her husband's house (and may take
away if she goes for a long visit to her kin), a matrilineage, or the water
carried in calabashes which may or may not be poisoned. It can also mean a
man's possessions or the collection of jars owned by a witch (1975: 297-9).
Such related webs of association motivate Turner's concept of polyvalent
symbols (1967 ch. 1; 1975: 173-7). Severed from the context of an actual
seance, the 'meaning' of individual tuponya tells us little. The meanings of indi-
vidual Tarot cards are similarly vague yet evocative. The diviner's skill lies in
constructing a persuasive account using elements from the meanings of the
particular tuponya that rise to the top of the basket.
Ndembu divination is particularistic, tied to the specifics of the case as much
as to the meanings of objects in the basket. The role of the diviner is crucial:
he is no mere operator shaking the basket as if he were winding a Pianola
230 DAVID ZEITLYN
which plays tunes 'by itself'. At an early stage, the diviner must determine the
name and place of residence of the sick or bereaved (and surreptitiously elicit
whether the consultation concerns sickness or bereavement). The diviner must
be a natural and perspicuous social analyst as well as a lay counsellor, and must
be sensitive to the unspoken reactions of the audience as well as skilled in
using the divining-basket itself.
The differences between Ndenmbu basket divination and systems such as
Mambila spider divination (see Zeitlyn 1990; 1993) lie more in the constraints
on, rather than the putative ignorance of, the diviner. As Turner (1975) makes
clear, the diviner deduces the question (and, a cynic would say, the expected
answer) from the responses of the group of consultants and witnesses who
form the audience to the divinatory session.
Turner leaves the process of divination underanalysed. He had no choice,
not having had the asthmatic symptoms of possession by the Kayong'u spirit
which is the basis of the diviner's skill. Nor did he witness any divination ses-
sions. In such divination systems the experience remains elusive; the anthro-
pologist is eternally on the periphery, the objective observer whose very
objectivity blocks comprehension.5 This is not the case with rule-bound divi-
nations such as that of the
ffa
and Mambila spider divination (or, it should be
added, Tarot). Tarot illustrates the problem to which I constantly return, and
around which I circle. No particular experience is required of a Tarot reader,
no event, singular or repeated, such as possession.Yet the Tarot adept makes a
jump during the reading. The way in which adepts make a bridge between
their own knowledge or intuitions about the client and the meanings of the
cards is close (and possibly identical) to that of Ndembu diviners. In giving
their answer they refer to the cards, using the cards' externality and iconicity
to justify their account. We cannot know another's thoughts, so the process
of divination remains closed; hence, I believe, the attraction of the social or
psychological reduction. While we cannot go further with Ndembu or Tarot,
it is possible to see more in other cases.
For example, Garfinkel and his colleagues have published a related
case-study of scientists at work (Garfinkel, Lynch & Livingston 1981). They
examined tape recordings of scientists making observations which were later
written up in articles. The technique of science is in part to perform experi-
ments 'satisfactorily'. In science, 'satisfaction' can be defined fairly precisely:
the experiments must be replicable and the published account must be
accepted by the scientific community. Garfinkel and his colleagues analyse
the conversation of some astronomers as they go about their business. The
scientists are concerned to establish to their own satisfaction that what their
instruments appear to be detecting is 'out there' and not an artefact of
the equipment. Once the descriptive language used by Garfinkel, Lynch
and Livingston is disentangled, a picture emerges which should by now
be familiar. The final meaning (in this case, the observation of an optical
pulsar) is emergent and negotiated. It results from a continuing and enduring
process, doing science. Its acceptance is the culmination of both conversation
among the experimenters and their interaction with their equipment. The
parallel between this and the praxis of divination is clear, but to exploit it we
must study divination in action. We need case-studies rather than abstract
accounts, and it is to these we now turn.
DAVID ZEITLYN 231
Richard Werbner: divinatory poetics
Some cases have been published byWerbner. For him (1989: 23), the neglected
problem of divination is 'how through very different periods of history, archaic
verse has continued to be a powerfully effective means for getting one's bear-
ings on disparate personal predicaments'. So, it seems, diviners must adopt the
role of indigenous literary critics. Although this is an intriguing parallel, several
notes of caution are necessary. Archaic texts have long been used by many
different people to shed light on contemporary problems in ways that differ
from divination (although they may be similar). The interpretation of archaic
texts in the light of present issues is relevant to any student or practitioner of
religion confronted by millions of people whose everyday lives are affected
by texts written 1,400, 2,000, or even 2,500 years ago.To open a copy of the
Bible at random in order to select a verse relevant to a current question is a
form of divination; to ask how the 'Sermon on the Mount' may guide a
believer to answer that question is not.Yet both involve the interpretation of
old religious texts.
Another caution concerns the analogy itself. The textual criticism of divin-
ers is significantly different from that of literary critics in the Western acade-
mic tradition. Crudely, clients are more important than texts (a point I return
to in the conclusion).Yet these clients do not have access to the texts in ques-
tion (unlike readers of literary criticism, who can consult the source text). So,
only fellow diviners may be in a position to challenge an interpretation, most
likely to occur when one diviner goes to another to consult.
Werbner has studied the divination systems of the Kalanga (1973) and the
Northern Tswapong (1989), in Botswana and Zimbabwe. The immediate
problem for the analyst is that, in both systems, morals are drawn from a
selected text. Both appear to be classic cases of social contextualization. The
individual woe is interpreted as a part or a consequence of a wider social
upset, an 'index' in the Peircean terms Werbner uses. Once the upset is
resolved, the immediate problem will also be solved. This resembles the types
of social approach to divination that I have already criticized. Here, I would
stress the importance of the dual role of the diviner as technician and liter-
ary critic. Werbner's ethnography shows how the authority of the diviner
depends partly on the interaction between technical competence and critical
fluency.
Contrasts between Kalanga and Yoruba Ifa divination
Kalanga domestic divination demonstrates the skilled use of archaic texts asso-
ciated with particular combinations of the four divining-tablets. As in the
Ifa
system, a succession of throws leads to the selection of verses from a corpus.
The differences lie in the complexity and size of the corpus of verses, and in
the freedom the diviner has in using them. The Ifr corpus is very large and
memorizing it comprises a large part of the process of learning to divine (e.g.
Abimbola 1976; Bascom 1969: 84-7). Kalanga diviners have fewer verses to
memorize and appear to have greater freedom in using the verses during divi-
nation sessions.6 Werbner stresses that only parts of verses are quoted, and also
232 DAVID ZEITLYN
that non-occurring combinations are discussed at length during a seance. The
outcome that has not occurred may be significant, affecting the interpretation
of the selected verse. Werbner stresses the collaboration between diviner and
audience. Domestic divination is performed locally (in one case described by
Werbner, a man divines for and about his own wife), so everyone brings a
large amount of prior knowledge to the seance. Part of the diviner's skill is
to fashion a plausible and consistent account. This must satisfy both the diviner
and the audience. Werbner shows how this is achieved in Kalanga divination
by collaboration between diviner and client.
Werbner's view was that too much meaning could be extracted from the
divinatory verses. The divinatory method was, therefore, one of reduction,
extracting a particular meaning or group of meanings from the wide range
of possibilities. (A similar problem arises in Moundang divination; see Adler
& Zempleni 1972). This is achieved through dialogue with the client, which
brings the persuasiveness and the authority of the diviner into issue. All these
points are examined in greater detail in his work on Tswapong wisdom divi-
nation, which contains more detail than his account of Kalanga divination.
Tswapong wisdom divination
Tswapong wisdom divination consists of two complementary techniques.
First, a set of tablets is thrown. The pattern of their fall is used to select one
from among a number of verses couched in archaic language. In the second
stage this verse is used to interpret the pattern resulting from the throw of a
set of bone dice (which Werbner calis 'lots'). The details of the dice are used
to add detail to the interpretation of the generalities of the verses.
Werbner concludes by describing the divinatory seance as both the exhi-
bition and the experience of complexity. He concludes that in the course of
divination a double transformation takes place: a plan of action is created, and
the baffling complexity of the lots is simplified to produce 'intelligible com-
plexity'. For Werbner (1989: 59) the 'recognition of orderly transformation ...
helps to underwrite the authority of wisdom divination in the face of the
intuitive and irregular actualities of the interpretative process'. The authority
of divinatory interpretation is considered further in the examination of the
divination process, below.
Werbner (1989: 21) distinguishes between the 'microdramatics' and the
'poetics' of divination. Microdramatic divination 'exhibits in the fine scenes of
easily handled lots, a series of encounters between significantly opposed agents,
such as friend and foes'. However, we also
have to understand the microdramatics that exhibit the visual, along with what I would call
the poetics of divination. By the poetics of divination I mean the interpretation of the use
of cryptic, condensed and highly ambiguous language, such as in archaic, authoritative verse.
... And how are we to interpret reflexively in a way that takes into account the peoples'
own interpretative activity?
Werbner's question was part of the motivation to write this article.
For the Tswapong, divination is a response to an affliction which is believed
to be evidence for a moral disorder. The sufferer is a victim. In the course of
a divination seance a unified, composite village (with overlapping categories
DAVID ZEITLYN 233
of kin and affines) is conceptually divided into the mutually exclusive cate-
gories of allies and enemies. By imposing structural simplicity onto the com-
plexities of the real world, divination links the spatial and moral universe, so
that the straying of cattle both implies and is held to be caused by a state of
moral confusion (Werbner 1989: 32).
Tswapong wisdom divination is used to sanction oracular contact with
the ancestors on behalf of a whole community or for the sufferers in it. Only
initiates may participate in an oracular seance (Werbner 1989: 26), the first
step in a sequence of ritual action, which Turner (1975: 241) identified as the
analytic mode of ritual. Werbner refers to Devisch's work on Yaka possession
divination (e.g. Devisch 1985) to show that a revelatory mode of divination
is also possible. The results of different types of divination may be revealed
non-verbally or in paradoxical terms.
Divination is undertaken by people with urgent practical problems that call
for action to be taken.The client must achieve a coherent reading of the situa-
tion in order to decide how to act. Presenting the client with a paradox
challenges the client to produce the interpretation. A client cannot simply
accept a paradoxical answer as such and continue to meditate upon it. To
ponder, to listen for the sound of one hand clapping, is a luxury not avail-
able to the parent of a sick child or to an unemployed person wondering
where next to search for work. The need for action requires a definite answer,
and the action taken enables us to infer the interpretation finally decided
upon.7 This may be a 'safe' option for diviners, since it removes the onus from
them: any mistakes appear to be the responsibility of the clients.
Werbner (1989: 59) says: 'The use of lots for non-verbal communication
gives a direct knowledge of complexity, of a type that is concretely embod-
ied in the moving parts of other creatures, and thus manifested as something
external to the subjects themselves'. In this, he adopted a position similar
to Park's (1963): divination provides an external authority or warrant for
decision-making. Unlike Park, however, Werbner discusses the process of
divinatory interpretation.
Tswapong wisdom divination uses two sets of four bone tablets. The fall
of each set of four is used to select a verse (as in the Kalanga system).
The two sets of tablets (and hence the two chosen verses) are described as
being senior and junior, and likened to two yoked oxen, the experience of
the one guiding the strength of the other, so that 'their logic in divining
involves a cross-check' (Werbner 1989: 37). In a divinatory seance (1989: 39-
41) the first throw of the tablets and their associated verses permit a tentative
initial interpretation.
The dice are then used. Each lot is described by reference to different parts
of the human body and is spoken of as having head, foot, front, and back,
which allows left and right sides to be defined (Werbner 1989: 42). The
problem of the superabundance of meaning diagnosed by Werbner in Kalanga
interpretation of archaic verses also arises when using dice. Diviner and client
must eliminate or discriminate between possible meanings. To do this they
apply their own knowledge to understand the individual lots. 'The interpre-
tative art is in selecting that which is cogent both for the diviner and the
client as well as for the rest of the congregation present' (1989: 43). This is a
particular challenge for the diviner, who generally knows the most about
divination and is not exclusively concerned with the client's problems. The
234 DAVID ZEITLYN
diviner is therefore able to reflect upon the praxis. So it is a greater problem
for the diviner than for the client to select a cogent interpretation.
The first throw uses all the lots. In later throws lots are gradually removed,
enabling a simpler, clearer picture to be achieved.Werbner (1989: 38) says that
lots 'are eliminated according to a simple and highly regular method. Each is
said to be "overcome" or "tired" when removed according to its position'. He
(pers. comm.) explains this: 'Each piece or lot has a position of rest, "over-
come or tired", usually on the side regarded as its back; when it falls on
that position, it is removed'. He argues that the rule is not problematic in
practice, and that ambiguities about the position of particular lots do not arise:
although the final interpretation depends partly on which pieces have been
removed, in Werbner's view the removal of the lots is a simple technical exer-
cise. What is more important is the direction by the diviner of the congre-
gation's attention. 'In a sense a piece can be "removed" even if it is never taken
out; all the diviner has to do is ignore it, keep it in the background and fore-
ground others' (Werbner pers. comm.). Hence, the interaction between diviner
and client takes on even more importance. They achieve a mutual interpre-
tation of the fall of the lots by a dialogic process.
The lots are made from the bones of particular animal species, and differ-
ent species have different attributes ascribed to them. In divination the attrib-
utes associated with the animal from whose bones the lot is made are taken
to refer to the client's case. The dice are taken as icons of those animal species
and indexes of the meanings related to the species (Werbner 1989: 44).
Werbner (1989: 48) describes the divinatory seance, moving from the verses
to the fall of the lots, as going 'from the poetics in verse and metaphor ... to
the microdramatics in the presentation of the dice'. But there is a further
twist. The meaning of the fall of the lots is drawn not only from the verses
uttered but also from other verses. The diviner invokes, quotes, or mentions
other possible verses which had not been selected by the fall of the tablets
(1989: 49; see also 1989: 57; 1973). There is an uncanny resemblance between
this style of justification and some modern textual criticism. A leading Shake-
speare scholar writes that 'the fullness of Shakespeare's meaning is always just
out of reach, postponed until we can read yet another old book, which would
make clear to us some new aspect of what Shakespeare said or
-
just as
sig-
nificantly
-
deliberately avoided saying.' (Taylor 1989: 87, emphasis added).
The significance of this move from poetics to microdramatics is that appeal
is not made to 'irrelevant' non-occurring groups but only to 'relevant' ones.
The diviner has an interpretation in mind which he is trying to convey per-
suasively to the client. The invocation of hypothetical results is part of the
rhetorical process. So, too, is the way in which the diviner points out the lots
or groups of lots, naming them for clients (1989: 50), encouraging them to
feel that they are participating.8
Having arrived at an initial diagnosis on the basis of the first throws of the
tablets and lots, further throws are made. After the second throw the diviner
questions the client, who answers non-verbally (Werbner 1989: 51). The ques-
tions imply a line of interpretation. The client assents to the overall interpre-
tation by assenting to individual questions. The examples Werbner gives could
serve as a model for anthropologists of how not to ask questions. These ques-
tions do not just demand information, they convey the assumptions and inten-
DAVID ZEITLYN 235
tions of the questioner. They therefore serve as indirect persuasion. By agree-
ing to answer a question, by recognizing it as plausible and relevant, the client
assents not just to the question itself, but also to the overall drift of the
diviner's interpretation.
In ordinary discussions over food or drink, and around seminar tables, in
legal arguments in court, and in other sorts of talk, many loose ends are left.
The talk moves on, a topic is unresolved, but no matter, it is simply aban-
doned, not resolved. It may matter only to the anthropologist puzzling through
the transcript afterwards. So in Tswapong wisdom divination, the diviner
guides the direction of travel and can jettison, ignore, or neglect alternative
interpretations.'It is up to the diviner in his wisdom to get people to see the
scene selectively, with regard for a certain foreground or disregard for a certain
background' (Werbner 1989: 58-9). For example, in the case discussed by
Werbner, the diviner argued against the result of the second throw of tablets,
which contradicted the first throw. The cause of the problem was witchcraft,
not ancestral wrath as implied by the second throw. To justify this, the diviner
cited the verses implied both by the first throw of the tablets and by the fall
of the dice (1989: 53).
Werbner describes a case and uses it to illustrate how the diviner controls
the process by making a statement about the client's dreams which suggests a
particular line of interpretation. 'Rra Mafaya pointed to the ant-bear or god
[one of the bone dice] which was headed toward various predators [other
dice].' Werbner (1989: 45) then quotes the diviner: 'Indeed, your father - and
you should listen carefully to me - when you dream about him, you see him
facing away from you' (1989: 45). Werbner (pers. comm.) explained that the
phrase 'listen carefully to me' implies that new information was being revealed.
Before beginning the seance proper, the client had given an account of his
quarrel with his father. According to Werbner, he had not mentioned dream-
ing of his father. Rra Mafaya introduced a new detail, consistent with and
supporting the account given by the client. The use of such details is persua-
sive. A dream figure faces away from the dreamer. We know that we dream,
but we can often remember the details only hazily.They may be brought back
by hints and suggestions. The suggestion is that if the diviner can be precise
about such small details then the overall picture must also be accurate.
One technique for remembering a set of dissimilar objects is to construct
a story which links them. It is always possible to construct a plausible story.
Conclusions
Diviners interpreting archaic texts produce an idiosyncratic indigenous criti-
cism. There is an irony when we come to compare this with the products of
literary criticism in the Western tradition. This must stem partly from the
medium. By the time criticism became established in the classical era, liter-
acy was already widespread. Even the earliest discussions are distanced from
sources and audience, both by the medium of writing and by a division of
labour. Poetry and criticism were not part of the same performance or event,
as they are in the sorts of divination we have been examining. Yet there is a
curious convergence with some modern currents in criticism (see Barber
236 DAVID ZEITLYN
1984). Authorial intentions are not invoked or mentioned by the diviners. The
verses do not have a recorded history of composition, though the I Ching is
an important exception (Smith 1991; Smith, Bol, Adler & Wyatt 1990). Issues
related to composition are rarely discussed. We readers assume some inten-
tionality behind the text (Robertson 1988; Ryan 1987); sentences are seen to
be linked, as we assume relevance and continuity of reference between one
sentence and the next (see Grice 1981; Levinson 1983; 1989; Sperber &
Wilson 1986). If literary texts have a hidden key, it is accessible only to
the knowledgeable or initiated reader (Calinescu 1993: 239ff.). Typically, in
divination it is the diviners, not their clients, who have been initiated, an
imbalance that affects the interpretative task at hand.
Furthermore, diviners such as Rra Mafaya have more commitment to their
clients than to their texts. They are not committed to 'close reading' and the
search for the secret in the text (Calinescu 1993). In two different sessions the
same text may be selected and relied upon to reach two completely different
conclusions. This may resemble the status of literary texts in different epochs:
compare
Antigone
as performed in ancient Greece and in Paris during the
Second World War. The message received by the audience could hardly be
more different. As critics, then, diviners are fickle. An individual critic,
however, tends to have a broadly consistent view of any one text. Here lies a
profound difference between professional critics and diviners.
One concept that has been imported into anthropology from literary criti-
cism is Bakhtin's use of the 'dialogic'. In anthropology it has been applied in
postmodern ethnography (Clifford 1980; Dwyer 1977; 1979; Tedlock 1983),
applied not so much to the multivocality of individual texts as to the rela-
tionship between anthropologists and those with whom they work. The result-
ing texts are synthetic, and readers must consider the underlying dialogue
between anthropologist and informant. More recent, and more relevant to my
discussion, is Barber's (1991) use of Bakhtin in her analysis ofYoruba oriki, a
genre of praise poetry. Unlike the postmodernists, Barber is applying literary
concepts to texts (albeit unwritten). Since oriki exist side by side with the
verses of
Ifa
divination, an examination of one may illuminate the other.
Barber (1991: 36) summarizes the dialogic of oriki:
Oriki could be seen as the living embodiment of the dialogic. They are addressed by one
person to another and often involve explicit or tacit references to the context of the utter-
ance, the joint 'purview' of speaker and hearer. Oriki however are dialogic not just in the
sense that all utterance is dialogic, but in a dramatised and heightened form. One could almost
say that they are a representation of the dialogic. In oriki pelformances, the role of utterance
in constituting social being is held up to view. The performer constructs her own persona
as a performer in the act of establishing her subject's reputation, that is his, her or its claim
to full social existence, to a recognised place in the human world.The mutuality of the process
is made vividly evident in the intense dyadic interchange between pelformer and hearer.
Even though Barber (1984) has argued that oriki exemplifies the perfect text
according to the school of deconstructive criticism, it is a genre which would
make most literary critics despair. The praise poems lack most sorts of unity;
the women who chant oriki are bricoleurs of the first water, using elements from
other oriki, from proverbs, and otherYoruba genres, including itan (history),
proverbs, orisa pipe (the prayers to the orisa in so far as they can be distinguished
from oriki), iwure (good-luck chants), folk-tales, and the verses of
Ifa,
as well as
DAVID ZEITLYN 237
oriki themselves. Performatively they are distinguished by the insistence with
which they are chanted (or shouted or screamed) at the entity to whom they
are addressed, which may be a living individual, an ancestor, a household or
lineage, or a deity. The performer weaves a web of allusion by combining many
disparate elements: the more skilful the performer the more radical the breaks
and twists she can introduce while maintaining the thread of frail links between
one phrase and the next. Moreover,'any kind of resemblance (including oppo-
sition and strong contrast) can be used to bring two utterances into conjunc-
tion: syntactic, semantic, lexical, tonal; through sound, through structure or
through meaning' (Barber 1991: 269). Performance may increase the bricolage
still further: a performer may be addressing an oriki at one man when a more
senior man arrives.Without a clear break she will change to the performance
of his oriki. Where, then, is the unity of performance or narrative? The notion
of a dialogic proves more helpful. In oriki there are continual shifts of the
inferred voice: the first person moves, without pause or comment, from the
woman speaking, to the addressee, to either or both of their ancestors, their
lineages as a single unit, and may then change into the second or third person
and back: all in five lines (1991: 260). As the quotation above indicates, and as
Barber demonstrates at length, the performance of oriki is part and parcel of
the acquisition and maintenance of status, and of power. The performance of
oriki is in part constitutive of this. InYoruba society, one cannot be understood
without understanding the other. It is in this reciprocal, indirect relationship
that the dialogic lies.
In contrast to oriki, in Ifa the ese verses are fixed. The babalawo who recite
the verses must also interpret them. Part of the freedom of the oriki (for both
performer and the composition of the verses performed) is the performative
element. To utter oriki is to do oriki, is to praise. Barber (1991) shows that
more could be said, but that it was not said in the town where she did her
research. By contrast, the babalawo learn not just a set of verses but also how
to interpret them. An oriki performer has no parallel tradition of reflection
upon the texts. However, as I have just remarked, oriki are unlike Ifa ese in
being performative. Speaking is doing in oriki, whereas in
Ifi
the recitation of
divination verses is a preliminary to action, not the action itself.
Postmodern anthropology has emphasized the dialogic relationship between
the ethnographer and the traditional subjects of ethnography. Barber has
shown dialogic relationships at work between the performer and audience
in the performance of oriki verses. The process of divination is similar, as
I have shown using Werbner's work. The relationship of client and diviner
makes dialogue central to any adequate account of divination. Drawing on
Whyte's work, I argued that a concern with the dialogue between diviner and
client alone is inadequate. In examining the process of divination, we must
consider the multivalent and hence multivocal relationship between divina-
tion technique and diviner as well as between diviner and client.Yet there are
important differences between divinatory techniques that produce signs in the
dust or other physical results, those in which possession leads to some form
of glossolalia, and those in which a text is chosen.
I have already pointed to recent work that has stressed that there are mul-
tiple points at which meaning is negotiated during the process of divination.
The use of texts adds another such point, where diviners may have to justify
themselves to fellow diviners who know the same verses. In this respect they
238 DAVID ZEITLYN
resemble the peer group of literary critics, yet unlike critics diviners have a
primary orientation to their clients, a group absent from the academic scene.
To modify the diagram I used above as a summary of Whyte's position at
the start of this article, the final argument may be represented as in Figure 2.
Diviner
Clie/it Text
Selection
Client t Text 8 Techniques
(Potential) audience of other diviners
FIGURE 2. Extended divination 'conversation'.
In all types of divination the diviner is placed between divinatory proce-
dures and the clients, mediating each to the other; the forms of mediation
differ, and therein lies the challenge to the anthropological analyst.
NOTES
This paper has benefited over the years from conversation, discussion, and correspondence
with Dick Werbner, Susan Whyte, Karin Barber, Bill Watson, and nmy Mambila diviner col-
leagues. I offer them my thanks for encouraging me to persist in my errors despite their advice:
the debate continues. Electronic versions of my own and Werbner's articles are available (with
pernmission of the publishers) at the following URL:
<http://wwwwera.anthropologyac.uk/
Divination>. A simulation of Mambila spider divination is also available as result of the
HEFCE-funded Experience Rich Anthropology project (FDTL 82/96).
'This is attested by the length of Odularu's (1990) bibliography of works on Ifa. By con-
trast, there is a paucity of case-studies of Ifa in use. Akinnaso (1995) is a recent exception, but
even it discusses but a single case.
2'f course, in many cases the If verses do not provide a neat or direct solution, in which
case the verses must be interpreted just as much as in the cases I discuss below.
3Barber has also suggested (pers. comm.) that, conversely, texts could be seen as a set of
'thought-objects', a fascinating proposal that bears further development.
4According to Lane Fox (1988: 173) a similar process occurred at the classical oracle of
Apollo at Claros.
DAVID ZEITLYN 239
5We await the publication of work on divinatory sessions by van Binsbergen, a fully quali-
fied diviner by possession.
6Werbner's published work does not enable us to take the comparison with Ifa much further.
Sadly, other sources on divination by the Kalanga and their neighbours give little further infor-
mation about the corpus of verses and how they are learned.
7Of course, action may be taken on the basis of a provisional and uncertain interpretation
(see the elaborate discussion in Kahneman, Slovic & Tversky 1982), and the interpretation of
action may be more 'text-like' than I have implied (Ricoeur 1971).
8However, Werbner does not discuss decisions not to interpret some lots, or the process of
their elimination.
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La decouverte du sens dans le texte: les etapes de
l'interpretation dans la divination 'a base de textes
Resuien
Certains systemes de divination sont utilises pour selectionner des sections determinees de
textes, typiquement obscurs et erudits, qui contiennent la reponse aux problemes particuliers
et pressants du client. Le I Cling chinois et l'Ifa yorouba sont des exemples celebres de tels
systemes. Les travaux de Werbner sur les divinations Kalanga et Tswapong offrent une etude
de cas detaillee de la pratique en vigueur dans ce genre de systeme. Les devins ont un role
multiple quand une technique de divination selectionne un texte. Lors de chaque consulta-
tion, ls doivent se satisfaire eux-memes, ainsi que convaincrc icur clicnt et icur public, quils
ont suivi les procedures corrcctcs pour selectionner le texte. Une seconde etape s'cnsuit. Le
client a une question particuliere, or le texte selectionne n'a pas ete compose pour y apporter
une reponse specifique. Une interpretation est alors requise pour satisfaire le client que la ques-
tion a re,u une reponse. Le devin joue ainsi le role de critique indigene, un role qui a a la
fois des ressemblances et des diffrences avec celui des critiques litteraires dans la tradition occi-
dentale. Le concept de 'dialogique' utilise par Barber dans son analyse de la poesie elogieuse
des Yorouba sert a illustrer les ressemblances et les differences entre devin et critique.
Departmnent of Social Anthropology, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NS, UK.
D. Zeitlyn@,ukc.ac. uk

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