Egg oracle

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An egg oracle , also ovomancy, oomancy, ooskopie, is a method of divination in which ancestors, spirits or gods who have died through the oracle carried out with an egg and who, according to popular belief , can influence the world of this world, about future events or about the cause of events that have already occurred can be asked. The oracle with the help of an egg or an animal presupposes the belief in a supernatural power, which is expressed through the aid used. Egg oracles were known in Roman antiquity , they belong to Germanic superstition and are still practiced today with different methods in some cultures in Asia. Their importance is related to man's relationship with chickens, which have functioned as oracle and wish-fulfilling sacrificial animals since ancient times . The egg symbolizes life and fertility and is often said to have magical effects. The throwing foracle carried out with eggs is of central importance for traditional culture among the Khasi in the state of Meghalaya in northeast India .

Magical ideas of chickens

Chickens are among the oldest domesticated animals. They can be found in most arable farming peoples, because their socialization with humans led to a better use of the available food supply. In traditional African cultures, chickens, goats and alcohol ( palm wine ) are typical religious offerings or are brought as compensation payments to settle disputes. In the same way, an attempt is made to appease the spirits blamed for crop failures and other natural disasters with offerings. With the Meta ' speakers in the Cameroon grasslands , the omnipresent creator god Nwiekò and the ancestral spirits are addressed in such a case. The village community asks to be acquitted of their allegedly causal misconduct against the divine order and sacrifices a hen. The performer of the ritual throws the hen on the ground after uttering a desired formula. If she excretes intestinal contents on impact, this is taken as a sign that the victim has been heard. The Meta 'practice other chicken oracles, for example by tying a chicken to a pole for a long time in order to find out the fate of a person after his death.

An example of a spirit worship that has been modified from a pre-Islamic religion and found its way into African popular Islam is the Bori obsession cult of the Hausa in northern Nigeria. In their traditional religion , a multitude of spirits ( iskoki , Sg. Iska ) work in everyone Areas of life on people. The names and characteristics of the spirits are only known to a few followers of the cult. Each of the iskoki causes a specific disease and must be appeased by sacrificing a chicken chosen for its color. In rare cases, a billy goat or millet beer are also considered victims.

One of the practical reasons for using chickens for oracles and sacrifices is that they are the cheapest pets and always available. In East Africa, oracles made from the bowels of the chicken were particularly popular. The Haya in the Buhaya region in northwestern Tanzania interpreted the chicken oracle from the location of the entrails, the later dried remains of which were carried as an amulet . Chicken sacrifices and oracles occur in Asia as well as in Africa. They have also been observed in Arab societies, where they do not go back to an African, but possibly to a pre-Arabic-ancient oriental origin. According to reports from the early 20th century, they were in Palestine , Syria, and Yemen . During childbirth, women were often considered to be particularly exposed to the influence of evil spirits. The female child-bed demon qarinah was to be kept away from the woman giving birth by offering a chicken . A rooster slaughtered on the threshold of the house at the wedding ceremony was intended as a sacrifice for reconciliation with a demon, other sacrifices were supposed to have an apotropaic function.

The domestic chicken probably goes back to the East Asian wild bankiva chicken . The chicken as a sacrificial animal is known from ancient China . Obviously, only roosters whose plumage and general condition were perfect were allowed to be sacrificed. There were probably chicken cults going beyond this in antiquity, as they have been secured for the later period in southern China.

Symbolism of the egg

The poetic English text:
“The wise ignorance, the clear-seeing instinct of our forefathers gave expression to the oracle:“ Everything springs from the egg; it is the cradle of the world. «Even our real fate, but especially the diversity of our fate, is rooted in the mother. She acts and foresees, she loves with a stronger or weaker love, ... "(from the book Birds ," Vögel ", 1868)

The egg transfers a widespread symbolism into the primeval world egg , which breaks open in cosmogony and whose two halves become earth and sky. Such a world egg was first mentioned on a papyrus in the Egyptian New Kingdom . The egg, from which not only chicks hatch, but also heroes and gods from the Greek myths to the Polynesian stories of creation, represents a universal symbol for life and fertility. In the Christian tradition these were already used in this meaning at pagan spring festivals Easter eggs become a symbol of the resurrection of Christ . Easter eggs have been painted in Europe since the 13th century, and that's what they have been called since the 17th century. The icon painters of the Orthodox churches , who mixed their colors with egg yolk instead of linseed oil, did so with an additional thought on Easter and the Resurrection.

Eggs as grave goods are from the 1st millennium BC. Received. Ostrich eggs , presumably imported from Africa, were excavated in Los Millares , southern Spain , and their age was between 2400 and 1400 BC. Dated. The ostrich egg, and the egg in general, was considered a symbol of immortality in ancient times and in Russia; It was probably from this background that it occurred at North African burial sites. The magical aspect of ostrich eggs has been preserved in some places in African, Islamic and Christian folk beliefs.

distribution

There are two forms of egg oracles. The one oracle belongs to the inductive practices of divination that rely on the contemplation and interpretation of omens (visible signs); in contrast to the predictions made through the intuition of an appropriately gifted person (oracle priest, seer). Going beyond the purely systematic interpretation of the signs, the fortune teller establishes a relationship with the influential higher powers. A professionally acting fortune teller will at the same time try to find out the previous history and reason for his visit in a conversation with his customer in order to come to an individual result.

On the other hand, the fate surveys, which can be carried out by the general population with an interpretation of oracle signs anchored in traditional popular belief, are simpler. They belong to the binary oracles and follow a compelling if-then scheme, for example when plucking daisies ("he loves me, he doesn't love me ...").

Germanic-German popular belief

According to superstition, fates and gloomy prophecies were extracted from an egg using regionally different methods, whereby the oracle power of the egg was generally greatest at Easter and Christmas. These were magically charged times, corresponding to the winter solstice when the Romans performed egg oracles.

Similar to the lead pouring , girls in Transylvania read from the egg white on New Year's Eve. In Austria on New Year's Eve, two holes poked in an egg gave a glimpse into the future. Whole eggs could - if certain rules were observed - equip their owner with clairvoyant abilities. If a churchgoer in Mecklenburg carried the first egg of a young hen in his pocket, he could see a crown on the head of the person who was about to die that year. In the Upper Palatinate , for Christmas mass , you had to go backwards into the church with an egg tucked under each armpit. Then he could see through the eggs and in this way make out the witches among those present, who were characterized by a sieve-like glow around their heads.

An oracle method is to put a stirred egg in a glass with water so that the next morning you can read something out of the resulting shapes. If you do this at midnight on Good Friday , you will find out how big the harvest will be this year. According to popular belief, girls in Germany, Portugal and France should use the egg-in-water oracle as a love spell. In one variant, an egg is beaten in boiling water and the future is read out of the coagulated protein. In France, the egg was smashed on the head before being thrown into the water.

An accidentally broken egg could cause bad luck, for example if an egg fell out of a girl's skirt apron. Anyone who broke an egg on New Year's Eve should die that same year. In Schleswig-Holstein a girl could question her fate when she put eggshells in front of the front door on Easter evening. Her future husband would be the next man to go by.

One superstition mentioned by Jakob Grimm in his German Mythology (1878) was throwing an egg into water to see if a child was bewitched. If the egg goes under, the child is bewitched.

Khasi in India

The Khasi , a large indigenous people in the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya , are mostly Christianized, but the members of the old Khasi religion ( Niam Khasi ) see themselves as keepers of the cultural tradition, which includes pronounced tree worship and fertility ceremonies. The big annual festivals are accompanied by an ensemble of drums and cone oboes ( tangmuri ) . The Khasi are known to perform a throwing foracle with eggs on all occasions of a certain importance. This tradition distinguishes them from the other ethnic groups of Northeast India. Before starting a journey, a khasi asks the oracle about the expected good or bad outcome. If an accident happens on the way, the cause was not current wrongdoing, but a sin that the traveler has committed at some point, or it can be traced back to the work of an evil spirit. Finding out the exact cause is again the task of an egg oracle. The egg oracle that takes place in front of a house is intended to help find the correct position of the kitchen stove. Every sacrifice to one of the numerous deities is also preceded by an egg oracle. In the past, the oracle also replaced going to the doctor or the pharmacy. If the illness persisted, it had to be repeated several times.

There is no special priest for oracles, sacrifices or other religious ceremonies among the Khasi. The head of the family (jaid) is responsible . In their matrilineal social order (according to mother lines) this is usually the maternal uncle ( mother brother ), otherwise every other man who is familiar with the egg oracle.

To perform a khasi throwing foracle, you need a rectangular wooden plate with a short wooden handle on one narrow side. The wooden plate ( Khasi ka dieng shat pylleng ) lies on the floor. On the fingerboard there is a little heap of red earth that will later be used to color the egg in order to better distinguish the outside of the shells from the inside. Then the egg thrower at the end of the handle places the egg on a few grains of rice in the middle of the plate. He mumbles invocations to various deities, wipes the rice off the plate, brushes the egg with wet hands and the red earth, then gets up and throws the egg on the plate with a swing. The oracle is determined from the position of the eggshells lying on the plate. Most of the egg shell pieces remain in the middle. This place is called ka lieng ("the boat"). The remaining pieces are judged whether they have fallen on the left ( ki jinglar ) or right side ( ki jingkem ). Roughly speaking, the pieces lying with the inside down represent a good omen, the other pieces a bad omen. From their exact location, for example, the cause of an illness, the fate of the sick person and whether he can be helped with a sacrifice to a god. If the eggshells are not distributed in a way that corresponds to the scheme and can be evaluated, the oracle must be repeated with another egg. Many eggs can be used up until the desired result is often achieved after several hours. Its contents are collected in a bowl and consumed later.

Another oracle method is less laborious: the oracle inquirer wraps a leaf (ka la met) around the egg , holds it tip up in his left hand and puts a few grains of rice on top while he mumbles invocation formulas again. He is now trying to push the egg in with his right thumb. If he can do this, it is a good sign, otherwise a bad sign.

Wooden boards for divination

The use of wooden boards for divination is a method known elsewhere. They occur as throwing boards, for example in West Africa with the Ewe and Yoruba , or as float boards. According to reports from the beginning of the 20th century, the Hehe in southwest Tanzania used a rubbing oracle (bao) in which some water was poured into a depression in the middle of a wooden board. The answer to a previously asked question was based on the point where a metal tube that was rubbed around on the board tried to stop.

South East Asia

The Karo- Batak in Sumatra know an oracle with a hard-boiled egg. Batak priests ( datu ) perform ritual dances around an egg as a magical center. In the photo from 1914–1919, a datu worships an egg, a toad and a chameleon with his magic wand.

Some cultural similarities such as Naga worship connect the Khasi with ethnic groups living further east. The mythological snake, known in South and Southeast Asia, has found its way into the folk tales of the Khasi as a man-eating beast thleng . The Palaung living in Shan State in Myanmar led their rulers (royal title saopha ) back to the mythical origin of the Naga princess Thusadi. The ancestor of the Palaung emerged from one of the three eggs she laid. According to older reports, the egg had a correspondingly outstanding importance among some ethnic groups in the Malay Islands , where a medicine man could identify the cause of an illness from the yolk of an egg that was opened.

A tradition of natural medicine healers, commonly known as tambalan , is still alive on the southern Philippine island of Bohol . They achieve therapeutic success with social and psychological problems through their anchoring in the tribal society and their religious-cultural influence. According to their function, different specialists are distinguished by name, one group of which are the shamans, sukdan . The tasks of sukdan include rituals that deal with the healing of the sick, change of residence and agriculture and include gifts ( rigalu ) to the spirits. Special emphasis is placed on the shaman's correct clothing during the ritual, as well as on his various aids, including a porcelain bowl. From this he drinks wine during the ritual, more precisely the spirit taking possession of him drinks the wine offered to him. The porcelain bowl ( talingtingun ) has another function in the oracle. If an egg positioned upright on the upturned shell maintains its balance, the spirits have answered a question addressed to them positively.

The Lahu in northern Thailand near the Burmese border believe in the existence of a large number of supernatural beings for whom they hold exorcism rituals. They think of the earth as a flat disc, the edge of which touches the sky. The streams flowing down from the mountains unite to form rivers that flow towards the southern edge of the earth. At this most remote point on earth the exorcist banishes the malevolent spirits ( Lahu jaw ) in his expulsion rituals. In order to free the house of a client from the evil spirits, he first leans the haunted house yaw yeh ("haunted house", Thai San Phra Phum ) against a wall. For the ritual he needs, among other things, a basket containing puffed millet, sand and a single chicken egg. He crouches in front of the house with the basket and looks in its direction. At the beginning of his expulsion ritual, he throws a handful of sand and millet seeds against the roof of the house. This is followed by a longer address to the ghosts in several sections, each of which he delimits by throwing sand and grains. This symbolic act, which can be interpreted in multiple ways, is intended as a gift to reconcile the spirits, hold them in their place of exile until the sand has crumbled (i.e. forever) and threaten them with the pi ya , a powerful supernatural opponent, whose help the exorcist uses .

Now the exorcist asks the egg oracle. He takes the egg, gets up and tosses it over the roof of the house. If the egg bursts when it hits the ground, he takes it as a sign that his previous endeavors have been successful. If the egg has landed in soft grass and remained whole, the entire ritual must be repeated and checked again at the end by throwing the egg. Then he offers the ghosts the ghost house yaw yeh as a place to stay with another formulaic address . He uses the yaw yeh oracle to check whether the ghosts have entered. He throws the haunted house made of a bamboo stick and foliage over the roof of the house. If the stick is oriented on the floor to the house, the ghosts have disappeared, otherwise they are still there and the procedure must be repeated until the desired result is achieved.

The egg plays an exemplary and varied role in the culture of the Hmong . Saub, the god of creation, caused the ancient hen to lay eggs. This happened before the flood and the appearance of the first Hmong. Many diseases are cured with the help of herbal broth, which is often mixed with an egg. Herbal and ghost medicine is usually done by the oldest woman in the family clan. Some magical rituals such as laig dab (feeding the ancestral spirits) and hu plig must be performed frequently. Hu plig is a ritual to bring back the free soul tus plig that has left the body of a sick person. The tus plig does not yet exist in a newborn and must first be brought into its body through this ritual. For this a shaman comes into action, who establishes contact with the spirits and whose equipment includes a chair with a plate with rice and an egg on it. For several types of divination, an egg can be used as an oracle; Among other things, for the question of which shaman is the most suitable for one of the aforementioned rituals to be performed. To find out, a family member balances an egg on a bottle or on the back of his hand and mumbles the shaman's name. If the egg remains in position, the person in question should be called in. If the shaman is there, he can use the egg in his hand on the bottle to ask about the spirit that made the patient sick. The patient enumerates by name all the ghosts he could have offended. If the correct name comes up, the shaman shows this by letting go of the egg resting on the bottle. There are two options for the subsequent treatment with the egg: The shaman calls the spirits involved to eat the egg. If the egg stays in place, it is shot at with a rifle to kill the ghost.

In popular belief in the interior of the East Indonesian island of Pantar , the deceased ancestors can have both positive and negative effects on the living. The ancestors are often held responsible for events that cannot be directly explained. The reason for their constant control and interference is to be found out by asking an oracle. Anyone who wants to withdraw from their ancestors should move away from their hometown. The oracle methods used are liver inspection ( seru onong ) from a pig's or chicken's liver, the inspection of the intestines of a chick that has been sliced ​​open, questioning a chicken while it is being slaughtered, or an egg oracle ( gena girè ).

Web links

  • 1918: C. Becker: The Khasi throwing eggs. In: Anthropos. Volume 12/13, Issue 3/4, 1917/1918, pp. 494–496 (with 4 photos on extra pages; Prof. Dr. Becker was Prefect of Assam).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ernst Haaf: Religious conceptions of the meta in the grasslands of West Cameroon . In: Anthropos, Vol. 66, H. 1./2. 1971, pp. 71–80, here p. 74
  2. ↑ Kurt Krieger: Notes on the religion of the Hausa. In: Paideuma, Vol. 13, 1967, pp. 96-121. (The list includes 99 iskoki .)
  3. ↑ Hubert Kroll: The pets of the Bantu . In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 60th year, H. 4/6. 1928, pp. 177–290, here p. 203
  4. ↑ P. Otto Mors: Fortune-telling with the Bahaya (Tanganyika) . In: Anthropos, Vol. 46, H. 5./6. September - December 1951, pp. 825–852, here p. 842
  5. ↑ Joseph Henninger: About Chicken victims and Related in Arabia and its outlying areas. In: Anthropos, Vol. 41/44, H. 1./3. January - June 1946/1949, pp. 337-346
  6. ↑ Eduard Erkes: Bird breeding in ancient China. In: T'oung Pao, Second Series, Vol. 37, Livr. 1. 1942, pp. 15–34, here p. 27
  7. ↑ Reinhard Schmitz-Scherzer : The egg as a symbol in human history - a sketch. (PDF; 45 kB) p. 8
  8. ↑ Gerd Heinz-Mohr: Lexicon of symbols. Images and signs of Christian art. Herder, Freiburg 1991, p. 83
  9. ↑ Venetia Newall: Easter Eggs. In: The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 80, No. 315 January - March 1967, pp. 3–32, here p. 4
  10. ↑ Ernst Schüz: The egg of the ostrich (Struthio camelus) as a utility and cult object. In: Tribus No. 19, Lindenmuseum Stuttgart, November 1970, p. 84
  11. ↑ F. Eckstein: Egg. Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer , Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli (Ed.): Concise dictionary of German superstition . Volume 2 (CMB women wear). De Gruyter, Berlin (1930) 1987, col. 618-620
  12. ↑ Jacob Grimm : German Mythology . 4th edition, volume 3. Berlin 1879, p. 470, sentence 966
  13. ↑ Peter Gerlitz: Religion and Matriarchy - On the significance of the matrilineal structures in the history of religion among the Khasi of Meghalaya with special consideration of the national-religious reform movements. In: Studies in Oriental religions. Volume 11, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1984, ISBN 978-3-447-02427-3 , p. 147.
  14. ↑ Philip Richard Thornhagh Gurdon: Religion. In: Same: The Khasis. 2nd Edition. Macmillan, London 1914, p. 106 (English; first edition 1907; Lieutenant Colonel P. R. T. Gurdon was the first Khasi ethnographer : superintendent / head of ethnography in Assam , honorary doctor of ethnography; reissued in 2010: ISBN 978-1-164-06643-9 ).
  15. ↑ C. Becker: The egg-throwing of the Khasi. In: Anthropos. Volume 12/13, Issue 3/4, 1917/1918, pp. 494–496, here p. 494 (Prof. Dr. Becker was Prefect of Assam).
  16. ↑ Philip Richard Thornhagh Gurdon: Divination by Egg-breaking. In: Same: The Khasis. 2nd Edition. Macmillan, London 1914, pp. 226-228 (English).
  17. ↑ C. Becker: The egg-throwing of the Khasi. In: Anthropos. Volume 12/13, Issue 3/4, 1917/1918, pp. 494–496, here p. 496.
  18. ↑ Object of the month March 2009: Opon ifá from the early 17th century. State Office for Museum Care Baden-Württemberg, 2014, accessed on October 1, 2018.
  19. ↑ Ruth Kutale: Divination and diagnosis among the Bena in Southwest Tanzania. In: Anthropos. Volume 98, Issue 1, 2003, pp. 59-73, here p. 62.
  20. ^ Franz Simon, Artur Simon : Karo-Batak (Indonesia, North Sumatra) - Dances on the Occasion of a Hair Wash Ceremony at Kuta Mbelin. Documentary, 1981
  21. ↑ Arlene Lev: Batak Dances: Notes by Claire Holt. In: Indonesia, No. 12, October 1971, pp. 65–84, here p. 69
  22. ↑ Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih: U Thlen: the man-eating serpent: Meghalaya . In: India International Center Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 2/3 (Where the Sun Rises WhenShadows Fall: The North-east) Winter 2005, pp. 33-38
  23. ^ PTR Gurdon, p. 16
  24. ↑ Ulysses B. Aparece: Lunas: The "Mother" of all Sukdan Shamans' Curing Rituals. In: Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Special Issue: Northern Bohol Shamanism) June 2006, pp. 135-187, here pp. 135f
  25. ↑ Ulysses B. Aparece, Fernando "Andie" Talaugon: Becoming a Shaman in Northern Bohol. In: Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, Vol. 35, No. December 4 , 2007, pp. 278-308, here pp. 295f
  26. ↑ Anthony R. Walker: Jaw te meḫ jaw̭ ve: Lahu Nyi (Red Lahu) Rites of Spirit Exorcism in North Thailand . In: Anthropos, Vol. 71, H. 3./4 . 1976, pp. 377-422, here pp. 394f, 403
  27. ^ Nicholas Tapp: Hmong Religion . In: Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 48, No. 1. 1989, pp. 59-94, here pp. 60, 68, 74
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  29. ↑ Susanne Rodemeier: Tutu kadire in Pandai-Munaseli. Tell and remember on the forgotten island of Pantar (East Indonesia). Lit-Verlag, Münster 2006, pp. 97f, ISBN 978-3825896041