Scapulomancy
Alternatively Omoplatoscopy, Scapulimancy, Scapulamancy, and Spatulamancy. In the Highlands of Scotland it was known as Slinneineachd.
A form of augury or divination by examining the patterns of cracks, fissures and marks on the burned (after being roasted over an open fire) shoulder-blade bones of an animal, usually one that has been properly sacrificed. The shoulder-blade bone is called scapula, hence Scapulamancy.
J. Grahame D. Clark, in World Prehistory (1961) said:
"It will be recalled that the practice of scapulomancy . . . can be traced back to the late 'Neolithic' Lung-shan culture."
Some diviners boiled the scapula, instead of roasting. Giraldus Cambrensis (1146-1223), archdeacon of Brecon, tells that Scapulomancy was a common practice in 13th-century Wales. He wrote that the bone typically used was the right shoulder of a ram, boiled, not roasted.
This type of divination was widely practiced in in both England and Ireland in the 12th-century, in Wales in the 13th-century, in ancient Babylon, among the Mohammedan diviners and in ancient China where, in addition to oxen shoulder bones, tortoise shells were also used.
In the method using turtle shells, the shell's plastron — the nearly flat part which is the bottom, or "belly," of the animal — was of special divinatory importance.
Scapulomancy, like most divinatory systems, is quite ancient, and has been practiced since time immemorial.
See Diviner, Astrology, Acutomancy, Agalmatomancy, Divination, Coscinomancy, Cleidomancy, Augur, Stoichomancy, Dowsing, Tarot, Heptameron, Demonology, Sortilege, Idolomancy, Demonomancy, Tephramancy, Anemoscopy, Eromancy, Austromancy, Chaomancy, Roadomancy, Capnomancy, Pyromancy, Meteormancy, Ceraunoscopy, Zoomancy, Casting Black Magic Spells, Commanding Spirits, The Tarot Store, The Chakra Store, Divination & Scrying Tools and Supplies, and The Pyramid Collection.
Sources: (1) Walker, Charles, The Encyclopedia of the Occult, Random House Value; (2) Spence, Lewis, An Encyclopedia of Occultism, Carol Publishing Group; (3) Dictionary of the Occult, Caxton Publishing; (4) Pickover, Clifford A., Dreaming the Future: The Fantastic Story of Prediction, Prometheus Books; (5) Dunwich, Gerina, A Wiccan's Guide to Prophecy and Divination, Carol Publishing Group; (6) Buckland, Raymond, The Fortune-Telling Book: The Encyclopedia of Divination and Soothsaying, Visible Ink Press.
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