Belomancy, also bolomancy, is the ancient art of
divination by use of
arrows. The word is built upon , and , , 'divination'. Belomancy was anciently practised at least by
Babylonians,
Greeks,
Arabs and
Scythians.
The arrows were typically marked with
occult symbols and had to have feathers for every method. In one method, different possible answers to a given question were written and tied to each arrow. For example, three arrows would be marked with the phrases, ''God orders it me'', ''God forbids it me'', and the third would be blank. The arrow that flew the furthest indicated the answer. Another method involves the same thing, but without shooting the arrows. They would simply be shuffled in the
quiver
A quiver is a container for holding arrows, bolts, ammo, projectiles, darts, or javelins. It can be carried on an archer's body, the bow, or the ground, depending on the type of shooting and the archer's personal preference. Quivers were trad ...
, worn preferably on the back, and the first arrow to be drawn indicated the answer. If a blank arrow was drawn, they would redraw.
This was an ancient practice, and probably mentioned in the
Book of Ezekiel
The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Tanakh and one of the major prophetic books, following Isaiah and Jeremiah. According to the book itself, it records six visions of the prophet Ezekiel, exiled in Babylon, during ...
21:21, shown below in the original Hebrew, and translated to English in the
New American Standard Bible
The New American Standard Bible (NASB) is an English translation of the Bible. Published by the Lockman Foundation, the complete NASB was released in 1971. The NASB relies on recently published critical editions of the original Hebrew and Gre ...
,
:
:"For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination; ''he shakes the arrows'', he consults the
teraphim, he
looks at the liver."
Jerome agrees with this understanding of the verse, and observes that the practice was frequent among the
Assyria
Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...
ns and
Babylonians. Something like it is also mentioned in
Hosea
In the Hebrew Bible, Hosea ( or ; he, הוֹשֵׁעַ – ''Hōšēaʿ'', 'Salvation'; gr, Ὡσηέ – ''Hōsēé''), son of Beeri, was an 8th-century BCE prophet in Israel and the nominal primary author of the Book of Hosea. He is t ...
4:12, although a staff or rod is used instead of arrows, which is rather
rhabdomancy Rhabdomancy is a divination technique which involves the use of any rod, wand, staff, stick, arrow, or the like.
One method of rhabdomancy was setting a number of staffs on end and observing where they fall, to divine the direction one should tra ...
than belomancy.
Grotius
Hugo Grotius (; 10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), also known as Huig de Groot () and Hugo de Groot (), was a Dutch humanist, diplomat, lawyer, theologian, jurist, poet and playwright.
A teenage intellectual prodigy, he was born in Delft ...
, as well as Jerome, confounds the two together, and shows that it prevailed much among the
Magi,
Chaldean, and
Scythians, from which it passed to the
Slavonians, and then to the Germans, whom
Tacitus observes to make use of it.
Belomancy is also attested the
pre-Islamic Arab religion. In his
Book of Idols __NOTOC__The ''Book of Idols'' ('), written by the Arab scholar Hisham ibn al-Kalbi (737–819), describes gods and rites of pre-Islamic Arab religions. The text is critical of pre-Islamic Arabian religion and decries the state of religious corrup ...
, early Muslim historian
Ibn al-Kalbi mentions that there were seven divination arrows in front of the statue of
Hubal in the
Kaaba.
References
Divination
Book of Ezekiel
Archery
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