A Drummer's Testament

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Chapter II-22:  Soothsayers and Diviners

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The inheritance of the soothsayers' bag; testing of soothsayers; the work of soothsaying; other types of diviners:  the jinwarba; jinwarba divination



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Supplementary material



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Contents outline and links by paragraph

Introduction

How soothsaying catches a person

Initiation of a soothsayer

Consulting a soothsayer

Soothsayers and belief

Transition

Jinwarba

How jina catches a person

The Jina dance and festival

Jinwarba as diviners

Conclusion



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Proverbs and Sayings

Knowledge is:  everyone and what he knows at his place.

As he has died, he has left something old.

He was holding an old thing, and it will be good if someone gets the old thing to hold so that our bodies will be cool.

The talk that doesn't finish, if you do it, it is something that is going to be standing and waiting for you.

Baɣ' bila di malimali ti paai tɔm.

The small soothsayer has eaten sweet things and has come to meet the bitter thing.

The new soothsayer is going to ask for the health of the town.

The soothsayer's mother consulted and left it for him.

The soothsayer should choose good things and leave bad things.

All of them cannot be the same, because wisdom is not the same.

A soothsayer's farm is not far.

The day is heavy.

Ŋum pa nir' yɛlgu, di deei, di zaɣsi.

Someone who is not a person, when he talks, don't accept it and don't refuse it.

The person you stay with is the person you quarrel with.

The way people stay together, if they quarrel, they will come to talk again.

If a soothsayer tells you something, you should also soothsay in your heart.

As for the one your eye sees, that one is true.

If you fear someone, how can you ask that fellow how he works?

If you fear someone, you cannot ask him about his work.

If you are doing work today and it doesn't help you, will you do that work tomorrow?


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