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INTRODUCTION
THE STUDY OF DIVINATION, PRESENT AND PAST |
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Every human community recognizes a need for the special knowledge gained through divination. While this need is hardly of the same order as the need for food and shelter, it is nonetheless universal. Murdock, for instance, includes divination among the features found ''in every culture known to history or ethnography" (1945:124). |
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Prometheus's gift of fire to humankind is well known, but his gift of the arts of divination has almost been forgotten, even though his name, meaning "forethought," reflects the importance of this contribution to Greek culture (Oswalt 1969:24951). Other great civilizations have granted similar prominence to divination. Anthologies by Caquot and Leibovici (1968) and Loewe and Blacker (1981) include contributions on divination's critical role not only in the classical world but also in the Americas, India, Tibet, Japan and China, Africa, ancient Egypt and the Middle East, Judaism and Islam, and the Germanic world. |
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Although divination practices continue worldwide, remarkably little research has been done on these systems of knowledge, including those in Africa, the focus of this collection. Mbiti's observation remains valid: "With few exceptions, African systems of divination have not been carefully studied, though diviners are found in almost every community" (1970:232). |
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Foremost among the concerns which shaped this volume is that, given the pivotal role of divination in African cultures, the study of divination systems must assume a central position in our attempts to better understand African peoples today.
1 As will be demonstrated, the sheer volume of information gained from recent thorough investigations of these systems reveals how much knowledge we lost as a result of earlier prejudices against divination. Throughout Africawhether in |
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