In writing the description of the Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona, I ventured to advance the surmise that the corn flour with which the sacred snakes were covered, and with which the air was whitened, would be found upon investigation to be closely related to the crithomancy or divination by grains of the cereals, as practiced among the ancient Greeks. Crithomancy, strictly speaking, meant a divination by grains of corn. The expression which I should have employed was alphitomancy, a divination "by meal, flower, or branne."[404] But both methods of divination have been noticed among the aborigines of America.
In Peru the medicine-men were divided into classes, as were those of ancient Egypt. These medicine-men "made the various means of divination specialities." Some of them predicted by "the shapes of grains of maize taken at random."[405] In Guatemala grains of corn or of chile were used indiscriminately, and in Guazacualco the medicine-women used grains of frijoles or black beans. In Guatemala they had what they called "ahquij." "Este modo de adivinar se llama ahquij, malol-tzitè, malol-ixim, esto es: el que adivina por el sol, ó por granos de maiz ó chile."[406]
In Guazacualco the medicine-women "hechaban suertes con granos de Frisoles, a manera de Dados, i hacian sus invocaciones, porque eran Hechiceros: i si el Dado decia bien, proseguian en la cura, diciendo que sanaria: i si mal, no bolvian al enfermo."[407]
Herrera in the preceding paragraph recognizes the close similarity between this sacred ceremony of casting lots or divining, and the more orthodox method of gambling, pure and simple, which has in every case been derived from a sacred origin.
"Les Hachus [one class of Peruvian priests] consultaient l'avenir au moyen de grains de maïs ou des excréments des animaux."[408]
The Mexicans "para saber si los enfermos habian de morir, ó sanar de la enfermedad que tenian, echaban un puñado de maiz lo mas grueso que podian haber, y lanzábanlo siete ó ocho veces, como lanzan los dados los que los juegan, y si algun grano quedaba enhiesto, decian que era señal de muerte."[409]
Father Brebœuf relates that at the Huron feast of the dead, which occurred every 8 or 10 years and which he saw at Ossossane, "a few grains of Indian corn were thrown by the women upon the sacred relics."[410]
