Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/210

202 (Zatòvo—Firìariàvana) are read from right to left. The four to the left (Kororòsy—Tsìnin' ny vélona) are read from left to right, while the names at the corners are read diagonally.

IV.—The Erecting of the Sikidy (i.e., the placing of the figures in the columns). So far, we have only seen the machinery, so to speak, with which the divination is worked; now let us try to understand how the diviner proceeded in order to gain the information desired in the great variety of inquiries made of him. In the diagram here given, all the columns are filled with figures, just as a veritable mpisikìdy would do, except that dots are used instead of beans or seeds. The rules for "erecting the sikìdy" will now be given.

1. The first four columns (Talé—Vòhitra) are filled with figures in the following manner. From the heap of beans before him the mpisikìdy takes a handful at random, and from this handful he takes out two and two until he has either two or one left. If two are left, he puts two beans, if one, one bean, into the first or upper square of Talé. In the same manner he fills the remaining three, Harèna, Fàhatèlo, and Vòhitra, square by square, from above down- wards.

2. When these four columns—one of which represents the person or thing regarding whom or which the sikìdy is made—are filled in the manner described, the remaining eight are filled by a combination of these first four, or of others that have already been filled by a combination of these. This is done in such a manner that two figures are chosen and compared square by square from above downwards. If this combination gives an odd number (i.e., if one of the two combined squares has one bean, and the other two), only one bean is put in the corresponding square of the new figure to be formed; but if it gives an even number (i.e., if the two combined squares both contain one bean, or both two beans), two beans are put into the new figure.