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To: alt.lucky.w,alt.religion.orisha,alt.occult.methods From: eballard@sas.upenn.edu (E. C. Ballard) Subject: Re: Luck Ball and Jack Ball??? Date: Sun, 05 Nov 2000 10:39:19 -0500 There is a long history of pendulum use among the West Central Bantu peoples - the Kongo, the mbundu and related cultures. That such a method should survive in the New World, supported by use both by African ancestors and readily found in European derived practices as well, is no great surprise. It exists among Paleros in Cuba and I have recently spoken with a student of Bantu religion in Brazil who refers to its use there today. While circumstances in continental North America did not preserve systems of divination such as the shell casting of the Yoruba (and others - shell casting being not a preserve of the Yoruba alone) as the works of Puckett and Hyatt so richly demonstrate many Congo forms of divination, often based upon trial, - some test for innocence, guilt, or else the existance or location of a thing did survive. Also, as is more prevelent among the Kongo, so did what is for lack of a better term called clairaudiant, clairvoyant or spiritual divination methods. All of these consist of the direct contact between diviner and a tutilary spirit either through hearing, seeing or direct possession. This latter form appears from some of Hyatts notes and from the common Algiers (the US town -not the African) term "two-headed doctor" to have still been common among hoodooers and rootworkers even between the two world wars. Whatever notions of deity and creation may exist among various Bantu peoples, deity is invariably distant and disinterested. The ancestors and other nature spirits are usually the only spiritual forces with whom humans interact for the Bantu. Even in the most complex forms of bones divination among the southern African peoples and the related basket divination of the Congo-Angola-Zambia area, both systems which rival Ifa for complexity and sophistication, the diviner almost inevitably goes into possession albeit often a light possession state, during divination. Eoghan -- +o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o+o E. C. Ballard Debajo del Laurel yo tengo mi confianza
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