The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

through casting the decision “upon the heavens” (Park 1963: 197). He takes as an example
the poison ordeal that also served Lévy-Bruhl in demonstrating a similar point. Through the
diviner’s manipulation of the poison in the poison ordeal, unwanted persons are killed with
the legitimization of the heavens. Apparently Evans-Pritchard's refutation of manipulation in
Zande divination and Bascom’s likewise among the Yoruba had not impressed Park. 12
Another example of elaborations on Evans-Pritchard's work by an American is that of
Eugene Mendonsa. He also finds the persistence of divination to be the result of a closed
logical system protected by secondary elaborations (Mendonsa 1978: 45-47). In divination a
dual causation is revealed, but because of the secondary elaborations the falsity of the
mystical causes are never seen. In his monograph from 1982, The Politics of Divination,
Mendonsa is trying to overcome the general problem of social functionalism: that there is no
room for man as actor. Mendonsa points out that divination far from always has a
harmonious effect of maintaining society and group cohesion. Instead it might as well
produce friction, which indeed it does among the Sisala in West-Africa where he carried out
his fieldwork. Since in society a number of contradictory rules exist, deviance is a system
property. In divination the source of this deviance is masked, and a new social construction
of reality is created. He finds the persistence of divination in its utility as an instrument for
the elders’ manipulation and coping with deviance (Mendonsa 1982: 23, 153). Divination is
consequently explained in terms of its function not for society, but for a group in society –
the elders.
The fusing of the English tradition of field work plus inspiration from the French in the
form of Durkheim had a great impact on divination research. This spawned studies focused
on meaning and classification. The prime example of this is Victor Turner, an influential
figure in general in anthropology and specifically in divination research. Turner had
conducted field work from 1950-54 among the Ndembu in Central Africa. In the course of
this he had interrogated a number of diviners on their profession, basket divination, but he
had not himself attended any divination séance. In 1961 he published “Ndembu divination –
Its symbolism & Techniques” (Turner 1961) where he summarized the technique and
dedicated a great part to in-depth symbol studies. In the Ndembu basket divination a number
12 It is far from exceptional that the refutation of the manipulation aspect was forgotten. Even in a festschrift
for Evans-Pritchard we find similar misreadings of the Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande:
McLeod twists the source material so that it apparently shows that the Azande do manipulate with the poison
oracle (McLeod 1972: 169)
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