Viewing page 116 of 182

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

19.

5. Scorching and the Crack-signs.

Having been drilled and chiselled, the plastrons or scapulae became completely ready for an 'oracle'.  What then was used to produce the crack-signs finally?  In other words, by what means were they scorched?  According to [[underlined]]Chou-li[[/underlined]], there was a special office in charge of the materials used for the scorching of the tortoise in the Chou Dynasty.  They are a kind of charcoal prepared from a special kind of firewood.  According to Hu Hsü the firebrand used in Suchou at his time was technically known as 'San-i-wan(三一丸)', or to be translated literally, 'three in one pill'.  This stuff was made of one ounce of charcoal mixed with .3 ounce of lead powder; this mixture was further mixed with the meat of fig.  Then it was stirred till the composition became homogenious; it was finally shaped like a joss-stick about half an inch in length.  When a divination was to take place, the prepared plastron was placed with the ventral side upward, The [[underlined]] san-i-wan [[/underlined]] was lighted in a fire till it was red-hot.  Finally this burning stick was placed near the cavity perpendicular to the slit-cut.  When the temperature was sufficiently raised, the crack took place.  This is the last of the mechanical treatment in the whole process of divination that survived at Hu Hsü's time in Suchou.  There is little doubt that the plastrons, and the scapulae as well, were scorched in very much the same fashion as described above; the scorched marks from the oracle bones of Yin-hsü all bear testimony to such a conclusion.

In studying the crack signs, the understanding of the meaning of two Chinese characters are of some importance: they are '卜 po' and '兆 Chao' respectively.  First about the character 'po'.

Its present shape is pictorial in origin.  In the Small Seal