CHESS AND PLAYING-CARDS. 



891 



viving from or suggested by the two-faced staves, from which the 

 diagrams origiuated. 



The above-described method of divination has a counterpart in the 

 Chinese game of Fan Pan, or "repeatedly spreading out," which is 

 played in the gambling houses established by the immigrants from 

 China in many American cities. Fan Pan 

 is played with aqnantityof Chinese brass 

 " cash," for which buttons and other small 

 objects are sometimes substituted. These 

 take the place of the splints or geichalcu. 

 The dealer covers a handful of these cash, 

 taken at random from the pile, with a brass 

 cup.^ The players lay their wagers on the 

 four sides of a square, numbered "one," 

 " two," " three," and " four." The dealer 

 then divides off the " cash" under the cwp 

 by fours, using for the purpose a tapering 

 rod^ of teak wood, about 18 inches in 

 length. When all the fours are counted 

 off, the winner is determined by the num- 

 ber remaining.' In these operations we 

 have the random partition of "cash" 

 substituted for that of splints, and the 

 square with its four numbered sides (cor- 

 responding with the Four Quarters) for the 

 Pat Jiivd or "Eight Trigrams" around 

 which the splints are counted. 



Analogous also to the Chinese and Jap- 

 anese method of divination with splints 

 is the Malagassy Silddy, Sb system of 

 fortune-telling in conuuon use in Mada- 

 gascar, in which beans, rice, or other small 

 objects that can be easily counted or 

 divided, are employed. A quantity of 



beans are placed in a heap, and from these a handful is taken at ran- 

 dom. From this handful the diviner withdraws first two, then two 

 more, and so on successively until two only are left, or, it may be, the 

 odd number, one. The process is repeated and the remainders, one or 

 two, are marked in tables of squares, from which the determinations 

 are afterwards made. 



The method of marking down, by means of one or two dots, is iden- 

 tical with that frequently employed in divining with the splints. The 

 process is repeated four times, one of sixteen combinations being 



' T'dn k'oi or "spreading out cover." 

 ^ T'dn pong, "spreadiug-out rod." 



3 Stewart Culiii, The Gambling Gaines of the Chinese in America, Philadelphia, 

 1891; also, The Origin of F'an fan, Overland Monthly, August, 1896. 



Fig 204. 



METHOD OF SHUFFLING ZEICHAKU. 



Japan. 



From Korean Games. 



