818 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



tlie road, whether they are friends or foes, and, if the latter, Avhether 

 they would be conquered or not.^ 



Diftereut tribes had different ways of consulting the Niu, but the practice was 

 general throughout the land. A spirit called Eorohaha Tu was supposed to reside 

 in the stick.- 



This manner of divination finds an almost exact parallel in that 

 described by Marco Polo as being resorted to by Chinghis Kaan.-' 



So when the two great hosts were pitched on the plains of Tanduc as you have 

 heard, Chinghis Kaan one day summoned before him his astrologers, both Christians 

 and Saracens, and desired them to let him know which of the two hosts would gain 

 the battle — his own or Prester .John's. The Saracens tried to ascertain, but were 

 unable to give a true answer; the Christians, however, did give a true answer, and 

 showed manifestly beforehand how the event should be. For they got a cane and 

 split it lengthwise, and laid one-half on this side and one-half on tbat, allowing no 

 one to touch the pieces. And one piece of cane they called Chinghis Kaan and the 

 other piece they calle.i. Prester Joh)i. And then they said to Chinghis: 'Now mark; 

 and you will see the eA-ent of the battle, and who shall have the best of it; for 

 whose cane soever shall get above the other, to him the victory shall be.' Then the 

 Christian astrologers read a Psalm out of the Psalter, and went through other incan- 

 tations. And lo ! whilst all were beholding, the cane that bore the name of Chinghis 

 Kaan, withonJ being touched by anybody, advanced to the other that bore the name 

 of Prester John and got on top of it. 



Colonel Yule has collected a number of references to similar divinatory 

 processes, of which the following appear to belong to the same class: 



The words of Hosea (iv, 12), 'My people ask counsel at their stocks and their 

 staff declareth unto them,' are thus explained by Theophylactus: 'They stuck up a 

 couple of .sticks, whilst murmuring certain charms and incantations; the sticks 

 then, by the operation of devils, direct or indirect, would fall over, and the direc- 

 tion of their fall was noted,' etc. Rubruquis seems to have witnessed nearly the 

 same process that Polo describes. Visiting Lady Kuktai, a Christian queen of 

 Mangu Kaan, who Avas ill, he says: 'The Nestorians were repeating certain verses, 

 I know not what (they said it was part of a Psalm), over two twigs which were 

 brought into contact in the hands of two men. The monk stood during the opera- 

 tion.' Petis de la Croix quotes from Thevenot's travels a similar mode of divina- 

 tion as much used, before a fight, among the Barbary corsairs. Two men sit on the 

 deck facing one another, and each holding two arrows by the points, and hitching 

 the notches of each pair of arrows into the other pair. Then the ship's writer reads 

 a certain Arabic formula, and it is pretended that, whilst this goes on the two sets 

 of arrows, of which one represents the Turks and the other the Christians, struggle 

 together in spite of the resistance of the holders, and finally one rises over the 



' If the stick representing his tribe fell above the other, it was a favorable sign ; 

 if below, a bad one. 



-The following parallel custom exists among the Tsuishikari Ainu, as described to 

 J. M. Dixon in the work cited: "A man in the tribe, desirous to know the will of 

 the Deity regarding a cerlaiu matter, called in the aid of the tiinuriiini (magician- 

 doctor). He came at night with two fresh willow (siisu) wands, stripped of the 

 bark, which he placed on a mat by the hearth. Tlien he called upon the unjila-mui 

 (Fire-god) to declare his will. Soon the footsteps of the god were heard; they came 

 up to the side of the tiisiiguru; the wands showed signs of restlessness and struck 

 the mat on which they were placed. Two raps signified permission; a scraping or 

 rubbing was an unfavorable augury." 



■'Colonel Henry Yule, The Book of Ser Marco l^olo, London, 1871, I, p. 213. 



