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2.

population.

The term 'plastronmancy' is here used to mean the practice of 'the art of divining by the under-shell of tortoise'.  Althou it has been lately found that carapace of tortoise[[strikethrough]]s[[/strikethrough]] was occassionally used, but it is so rare that it can only be considered as an exception to the general rule.  It constitute hardly one-tenth of one per cent to the total finds.  The scorched bones whether inscribed or not, found from Yin-shü are almost entirely either the plastrons of tortoise, or the shoulder blades of ox.  The latter has diffused to a very wide area in the course of time, while the use of the tortoise shells for this purpose has been apparently limited to the Chinese area.  Thus the term 'scapulimancy' has been long invented, while [[insert]]the[[/insert]] need of a technical term for a similar practice on the under-shell of the tortoise in the English language is felt only after the discovery in Yin-hsü has been made.

The practice of using the shoulder blades for divination purpose is however very seldom mentioned in the Chinese records except with reference to the borderland people.  In fact, till the beginning of the excavations at An-yang, very little is known about scapulimancy in China, which has been almost entirely overshadowed by plastronmancy.  The excavations here have shown very conclusively that scapulimancy played an equally important rôle in the daily life of the ancient Chinese; it seems to have even a wider distribution.

What is peculiar with the scorched shoulder blades and tortoise shells of Yin-hsü is the fact that they were in many cases inscribed with the queries and answers of the particular events chosen for divination.  Majority of these scorched bones are however not inscribed.  In this chapter an account of what have been found out of