© 2023 Dr Margaret Sheppard
Divination with Bones
Divining with Ditaola (bones)
Divining appears to be the basis of traditional medicine in Kanye and it is a very complicated process. Most traditional doctors use a set of from 6 -
Different traditional doctors have different practices connected with how ditaola are thrown. For example a client may be asked to sit on a chair, on the floor, or on a skin mat, or in a particular position for example. with the right shoe off and the right leg crossed under the left leg. The doctor then brings out his ditaola and the client repeats after the doctor certain words as the client holds the bones. These usually include the question that the patient wishes to ask. For example, "Ke a itaola. ke batla go bona molato gore ke eng ka tseo mo gonna." (I cast lots, I want to see the trouble with my marriage).
The client then breathes onto the bones and may say something like "Khu:" and then drops them onto the floor. The traditional doctor then praises his bones in a special "secret" Setswana, that is difficult for anyone else to understand.
The bone sets consist of animal bones, some of which are decorated. There appear to be four principal bones. there are 2 "male" bones made from the hoof tips of oxen. The main one is always from an important ox (e.g. one slaughtered at a wedding feast) the other is from a less important ox. There are two "female" bones and these are usually flat bones made from bone, horn or ivory. The male bones can each fall in 4 different ways, and the female bones in 2 different ways. Therefore these 4 bones can fall in 64 different ways. They represent the various close relatives.
One of the traditional doctors who showed me his sets of bones told me that he used 6 bones per set. Formerly he had used 8, but had been told by a certain female traditional prophet in 1974 after he had been having troubles, that he should use only 6. Today he uses one set of bones that contains 2 hoof tips from oxen, a vertebra from a baboon, a vertebra from a sheep and two flat bones (white) which are pieces of elephant tusk.~ In the other set he had 2 hoof tips, one pig vertebra (he uses this set when a Client's totem is a baboon), a sheep vertebra, and the 2 flat bones are made from cow ribs.
He told me that he had prepared these sets himself but had chosen bones from those animals because they interested him. The hoof tips represent the "right and left", i.e. the main one represents the "right" -
Another traditional doctor told me that he uses sets containing 8 bones. Both emphasized that the number of bones and the way of interpretation varies from doctor to doctor.
After throwing the bones for the first time, the traditional doctor recites a general praise to the set as a whole, then he praises each of the principal bones in turn, each having its own praise. These praises I found almost impossible to have interpreted, and even the parts that were make little sense to a non-
“Something which drinks blood is red ... a lion is the one which eats other animals ... Meat is eaten by masija.”
The doctor then continues in his "special" Setswana the way the bones have fallen. Then he will start to tell the patient in ordinary Setswana what he "sees" from the bones. The patient is supposed to agree or disagree with what the doctor says.
Then the patient is told to pick up the bones and throw them again. Again the patient repeats the question and blows onto them saying "Khu:" Again the traditional doctor praises the bones and the way they have fallen, and then he again interprets what he “sees”. This is repeated 3 or 4 times in all or even more if necessary, with the traditional doctor instructing the client what to ask. The praises and descriptions of the falls of the bones are impossible for anyone but the traditional doctor to interpret. For example:-
This perhaps meant something like the client may have an accident where they were working (herding), the dead impala could represent the client's blood dripping. On this occasion, the traditional doctor had continued:
“The meat is finished, but I do want the skin of my animal. Where is the skin I chopped bending? Who are you looking for, impala? I miss that person, if you can see that sort of a person. impala, you should hunt for that person for me."
The traditional doctor interpreted this to mean that there had once been a time when that client had been visited by a person who had come to borrow money, and the doctor then pointed to the direction the borrower had come from. When the borrower (a woman) came she had in fact just come from a traditional doctor. Then immediately the client had lent her money, and she had left, and then the client had started to have problems at her home.
The client agreed that this had indeed been the case. The doctor then continued that that woman had a friend who lived behind the client's home. This friend had medium-
Then he told her to throw the bones again. (She was about to go back to Rhodesia where she worked). She was told to say, as she threw the bones: "I'm going, I'm going. I am about to go on a journey. I'm having a bath and going." (i.e. going to be “washed” by the traditional doctor with traditional protective medicines.)
After this fourth throw the traditional doctor told her that she would have a safe journey, but that he could “see” that she had a pain starting under her arm. The woman agreed that she did indeed have this pain. He continued that once those women had come and buried something in her yard and it was that that was causing her pain.
A Traditional Doctor’s 2 sets of bones -