902 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



While the Chinese lots at the present day are inscribed simply with 

 a number referring to the corresj)onding pages of a book (as No. 70), 

 in which is to be found both the oracle and its explanation, it is not 

 unlikely that the oracle was originally engraved or written upon the 

 lot itself, such lots being the natural outcome from tlie engraved or 

 painted arrow shaftment, from which I assume they were derived. An 

 explanation of the origin of the sortes of the Romans is naturally sng- 

 gested. The sortes were little tablets or counters of wood, or other 

 materials, upon each of which some rough verse or poverb was writ- 

 ten. After they had been mixed together a boy would draw one at 

 random, which was then taken as an omen.' Cicero^ describes the 

 Sortes at Prseneste as being engraved in ancient characters on oak, 

 and kept in a chest of olive wood. 



70. KwAN Tai Ling Ts'im.^ " God of War Divining Lots." Canton, 



China. 

 Book of lots, to which the numbered lots are referred. 



71. PIk k5p p'iu ts'im ij.* Lots cast by gamblers. Canton, China. 

 Eighty bamboo lots, identical witli No. (19, except that they are num- 

 bered from one to eighty. Cast by gamblers before j)laying in the lot- 

 tery called the Pdlc kop pHu (No. 72) to determine the numbers they 

 should play. Kept in Chinese shrines of the God of War in China and 

 the United States for the convenience of gamblers. 



These lots, which are used ceremonially to divine the lucky numbers, 

 are doubtless survivals from the time when such lots were actually 

 used in the drawings. In Korea, lotteries called San-htong, appear to 

 be a distinct outcome from the ki/ei, or money lending clubs. In the 

 latter a hundred men each contribute a certain sum monthly, the draw, 

 ings being made with numbered wooden balls, which are shaken from 

 a globular wooden box, san-htong.^ The lotteries are drawn in the 

 same manner, and it should be observed that the name of the box, 

 san-htong, is the Chinese tsHni fmig, applied to the lot-arrows in their 

 quiver. The globular box and numbered balls are analogous to the 

 Italian lottery, in which numbered balls (No. 74) are shaken from a 

 bottle-shaped basket. 



'Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, art. Sortes. 



^DeDivinatio, II, p. 41. 



3 Cat. No. 15398, Mus. Arch., Univ. Penn. 



■■Cat. No. 9048, Mus. Arch., Univ. Penn. 



''The implements for a Korean lottery (Cat. No. 17612) in the University Museum 

 consist of a small tin lamp for burning kerosene oil, containing ten white nuts (seeds 

 of SaUsburia adiantifolia) numbered with Chinese characters from one to ten, an 

 evident makeshift for the appliance described in the text. 



Himly gives the Manchu name for the money-lending clubs as imngga mekten, "lot 

 drawing," with the Chinese equivalent of iw wi, "shaking society." When several 

 persons each deposit part of the money, and it is divided by lot-drawing once a 

 month, it is called iaanyya mekten. 



