ABSTRACT
Direct communication with the forces of the unseen world is not always possible. The primitive has it in his power to find the most favourable conditions for such intercourse, and to solicit a dream or vision by appropriate rites and practices. One of the forms of divination best known consists in examining the entrails, and especially the liver, of the victims sacrificed. In Borneo, divination by means of a pig's liver is resorted to on most important occasions. If anything special is wanted, they inquire of the pig. Among the Polynesian peoples, who were more civilized than those of Borneo, the practices of divination were, properly speaking, indispensable. Divination or enchantment was employed for the purpose of knowing their ultimate decision, and at these times they always pretended to follow implicitly supernatural intimation. If divination is practised by means of the knucklebones, the natives attribute precisely the same role to them as to the animals sacrificed.
