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for some inexplicable reason, or wild animals may speak with human voices to someone in the bush or transform themselves into a piece of iron. Even objects may behave strangely: something can suddenly fall at the feet of a person alone in the bush or appear in a special form at various places for days at a time. Like the wild animals, such objects are believed to be manifestations of thila who wish to communicate with a person; for this reason, a diviner must be consulted to enter into contact with the respective thila. |
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A Lobi never questions his diviner out of pure intellectual curiosity or just because he does not understand a certain phenomenon. Instead, he acts out a very real fear that a disturbing situation (sickness, bad luck, and so on) will continue or even worsen, or that a harmless event (such as a bad dream or an omen) is a sign of some danger yet to come. In both cases only the diviner, by contacting the thila, can find a way of alleviating the actual or potential problem. |
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Usually it is the male head of the family who goes to see a diviner. But first, with five cowries in his right hand, he approaches the most important shrines in his own house and in a low voice says, for example: |
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Hear, thil, I do not know what to do. I am afraid. My youngest daughter is seriously ill. We have tried everything to make her well, but in vain. If you are responsible for her illness or if you know exactly why she is sick, follow these five cowries to the diviner and say what you have to say so she will be cured. Have you understood?4 |
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Then he goes to see the diviner; only rarely does he have the diviner come to his house. |
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When the client arrives at the diviner's house, he greets him and tells him that he wants him to divine (bore). At no time does he mention the reason (no) for his visit, for the diviner must find that out for himself. The diviner takes the client to a special room, usually his first wife's room or his shrine room (thil du), and asks him to be seated. The diviner takes his divining bag (buorlokaar), sits down (to bul, "sit down without knowledge") to the right of his client on the smooth dung-covered floor, and brings forth from his leather bag the objects which the thil who forced him to become a diviner has ordered him to use: a piece of white or red limestone (mele), with which he makes a drawing of circles, lines, and waves on the floor; an iron bell (giel), with which he will later greet the "big ones" (kontena); one or more leather bottles (tyusu), which are closed with a piece of millet stock and which contain the cowries (be) for the questioning of the thila; wooden statues (bateba), which represent either people or animals in various stances; mussels (khaa); stones (bikaar); and, in some cases, other objects. |
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When everything is laid out in front of him, he begins by greeting (fuore) the |
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