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1.

Chapter V.
Plastronmancy and Scapulimancy.

This chapter is based chiefly on two articles by Tung Tso-ping: "A Study of Plastronmancy in the Shang Dynasty" and "Notes on Four Inscribed Plastrons", respectively appeared in Part I and Part III of the Preliminary Reports of Excavations at Anyang. With the author's permission, I have translated many parts of the original version; but a great deal of it has been ommited; only here and there are inserted some of my own original observations. Li Chi.

Ethnologists have been long interested in the widely spread practice of the art of divining by a shoulder blade, technically known as 'scapulimancy' or 'omoplatoscopy', in different parts of Asia and Europe and to a certain extent, the northern part of Africa. The origin of this practice has been traced back to Eastern Asia and is considered by a number of ethnologists as closely related to the ancient Chinese practice of scorching the tortoise shells for divining purpose. This ancient Chinese practice has been a very well-known one, especially among the Classical students. In Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shih-chi, a special chapter is devoted to the treatment of this subject; one may find in it a great deal of details concerning this usage. Tortoise was ranked in Early China ^[[as one of the four divine animals;]] and is the only one which was considered to possess the ability to prophesy. It may be said that not only things of state and religious importance but even details of private life were largely regulated by the 'language of the tortoise' as manifested thru the scorched cracks. The importance of this practice began to decline in the beginning of the Han Dynasty; but it is doubtful whether this custom is entirely dead even in modern China. For reports have it that it still lingers among the rural population somewhere in Kiang-su; certainly one of the most thorough treatise on 'plastronmancy' written in the early period of the Manchu Dynasty include a detailed account of this 'survival' among certain groups of the Kiang-su