How the dice work
Mo is the dice oracle of Tibet. One die carries the six syllables of Mañjuśrī’s mantra, oṃ a ra pa tsa na dhīḥ, the bodhisattva of wisdom. The diviner recites the mantra, holds the question, and throws the die twice. The first syllable is the ground you stand on; the second is what comes toward you. Six by six makes thirty-six answers.
Each syllable carries an element: A is space, RA fire, PA water, TSA wind, NA earth, and DHI the wisdom that is above the elements. The character of a throw is how the two elements meet: fire on earth is a hearth, fire on water is steam, wind on fire is a spreading blaze. The nineteenth-century master Jamgön Mipham wrote the text most diviners use; he gives each throw a name, a general reading, and readings for the household, wealth, illness, enemies, journeys and lost things.
The readings here follow Mipham’s elemental logic but are my own condensed renderings, not a translation. Every one of the thirty-six is equally likely: one in thirty-six.
Hold the question. The die is thrown twice: first for the ground, then for what approaches.
How Ifá works
Ifá is the divination system of the Yoruba of West Africa and of their descendants in Cuba, Brazil and beyond. Its priest is the babalawo, “father of secrets”. Two instruments produce the same result. The ọ̀pẹ̀lẹ̀ is a chain of eight half seed-pods, thrown once; it falls in two arms of four, and each pod shows either its open inner face or its closed outer face. The ikin are sixteen palm nuts: the babalawo holds them in the left hand and grabs at them with the right. If one nut stays behind he draws two strokes in the wood-dust of the tray; if two stay behind, one stroke; any other number is no mark and he grabs again.
Either way the result is eight marks in two legs of four, each mark single or double. Four binary marks give sixteen patterns, so each leg is one of the sixteen principal Odù, and two legs give sixteen times sixteen, two hundred and fifty-six Odù. The right leg is made first and is the senior; a compound Odù is named right-then-left. When both legs agree the Odù is a Méjì, a twin, and these sixteen twins have a fixed order of seniority that the babalawo learns first.
Each of the 256 Odù owns a body of oral verses, the ese Ifá, that the babalawo recites; the client hears their own case in one of them. Further casts then determine whether the Odù comes with blessing or with warning, and what offering is owed. None of that is modelled here. This tray shows how the marks are made and named, with my own short characterisations of the sixteen principals. Every Odù is equally likely: one in 256.
Hold the question. The marks are made right leg first, from the top of the tray down.
sixteen nuts in the left hand
How the cowries work
Ẹẹ́rìndínlógún means “sixteen”. It is the oracle of the priests of the orisha, of Ọ̀ṣun, Ṣàngó, Ọbàtálá and the rest, and in Cuba, as the diloggún, of Lucumí practice. Sixteen cowrie shells have their backs filed open so that each can land either mouth-up or mouth-down. They are thrown once onto a mat and the mouths facing up are counted.
Seventeen counts are possible, from none to all sixteen, and each has a name. Most of the names are Odù of Ifá, but the cowries pair them with counts in their own order, not in the Ifá order of seniority: eight open is Èjì Ogbè, one open is Ọ̀kànràn. A count of thirteen or more, and of nothing at all, is in most lineages not read by the cowrie priest: the client is sent on to a babalawo.
The counts are not equally likely. Sixteen shells falling at random are a binomial: eight is the likeliest, roughly one throw in five, and all sixteen open comes once in 65,536 throws. In practice the priest throws twice for a pair of signs and uses small objects, the ibo, to ask whether the sign is blessing or warning. Here you see the single throw, the count, the name, and the odds.
Hold the question. Sixteen shells fall together; count the mouths that face the sky.
How the lobes work
Obi is the simplest and most everyday of the Yoruba oracles. The kola nut, obi àbàtà, splits naturally into four lobes; in the Americas four pieces of coconut stand in for it. The lobes are thrown together onto the ground and each lands either with its pale inner face up or its dark skin up. The pale faces are counted, and the count answers a yes-or-no question: whether an offering has been accepted, whether a day is right, whether to go on.
Five outcomes are possible. Two up, Ẹ̀jìfẹ́, is the firm yes and also the most common throw, six chances in sixteen. Four up, Aláàfíà, is yes in peace; three up, Ẹ̀tàwá, leans yes but asks to be thrown again; one up, Ọ̀kànràn, is no; none up, Ọ̀yẹ̀kú, is an emphatic no and a warning.
Real obi is subtler: two lobes are called male and two female, and which of them fall open matters, as does the way they lie. This model counts only the faces, which is how the oracle is first taught.
Ask something that can be answered yes or no. Four lobes fall; count the pale faces.