Fox Divination

People throughout the globe try to make sense of their world through a variety of methods meant to tap into an unseen sphere, whether through the Chinese I Ching, European tarot cards, or Inca spider divination. African divination frequently has the same recourse: using a random method to tap into the order of the spiritual world in order to determine problems’ causes and cures. And Malians are not an exception, it is definitely among Malian culture, customs, and etiquette that may interest you. This is an example of silent animals in divination.

People live in villages set along the plateaus and against the high cliffs of central Mali. At dusk, diviners prepare complex grids of symbols in the sands at the edge of the village; corn kernels are scattered over the diviner’s diagram. At dawn the next morning, diviners return to read the patterns of the fox’s paw prints for the oracle’s answers to their questions. Fox divination of Malian occurs neither during the day nor at night, and neither in the village nor in the bush.