victory--the invaders had a portion of Persian soil.[1628] An
element of magic, however, may have entered into this conviction; the
bit of soil was supposed, perhaps, to carry with it the whole land. A
chance word has often been seized on as an indication of the future, or
a proper name taken as a presage.

+917+. The belief in the sacredness or divinity of the human body has
led to the search for divinatory signs in its parts. But it is only the
hand that has been extensively employed in this way. The hand has
offered itself as most available for divination, partly, perhaps,
because of the variety and importance of its functions, partly because
of the variety of lines it shows and the ease with which it may be
examined. Chiromancy, or palmistry, has been developed into a science
and has maintained itself to the present day; but it has largely lost
its divinatory significance and has become a study of character, which
is supposed to be indicated by the lines of the hand. In its divinatory
role it has often been connected with astrology.

+918+. The preceding examples deal with occurrences that present
themselves without human initiation. In certain cases the materials for
divination are arranged by men themselves. In such methods there is
always an appeal to the deity, a demand that a god shall intervene and
indicate his will under the conditions prepared by men, the assumption
being that the god has prepared the event or thing in question, and
that, when properly approached, he will be disposed to give his
worshipers the assistance desired. The casting of lots and similar
random procedures have been common methods of divination the world over.
The African Kafir diviner detects criminals by the fall of small objects
used as dice. The Ashanti discover future events by the figures formed
when palm wine is thrown on the ground, and from the nature of the
numbers, whether even or odd, when one lets fall a handful of nuts. In a
dispute the Yoruban priest holds in his hand a number of grass stalks,
one of which is bent, and the person who draws the bent stalk is
adjudged to be in fault.[1629] The Hebrews had the official use of
objects called "urim and thummim" (terms whose meaning is unknown to
us), which were probably small cubes, to each of which was somehow
attached an answer "yes" or "no," or the name of a person. Thus, when
David inquired whether he was to attack the Philistines, the answer
seems to have been "yes."[16