Favomancy is a form of

divination Divination (from Latin ''divinare'', 'to foresee, to foretell, to predict, to prophesy') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout histor ...

that involves throwing

beans A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes th ...

on the ground and interpreting the patterns into which the beans fall; it is therefore a type of

cleromancy Cleromancy is a form of sortition (casting of lots) in which an outcome is determined by means that normally would be considered random, such as the rolling of dice, but that are sometimes believed to reveal the will of a deity. In classical civ ...

. Various forms of favomancy are present across the world's cultures. The term comes from the ''

Vicia faba ''Vicia faba'', commonly known as the broad bean, fava bean, or faba bean, is a species of vetch, a flowering plant in the pea and bean family Fabaceae. It is widely cultivated as a crop for human consumption, and also as a cover crop. Variet ...

'' meaning Fava bean, and by way of cult etymology, from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for "bean" and formed by analogy with the names of similar divination methods such as

alectromancy Alectryomancy (also called alectoromancy or alectromancy; derivation comes from the and ) is a form of divination in which the diviner observes a bird, several birds, or most preferably a white rooster or cockerel pecking at grain (such as wheat ...

. Favomancy used to be practised by seers in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, in particular, among the Ubykh. Russian methods of favomancy may still exist after the departure of the Ubykhs from the Caucasus in 1864, but the details are now lost of exactly how Ubykh soothsayers interpreted the patterns formed by the beans. The Ubykh term for a favomancer (pxażayš’) simply means "bean-thrower", and it later became a synonym for all soothsayers and seers in general in that language. In Muslim traditions of

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...

, favomancy is called 'bean-throwing' or (from Persian 'to bode'). The fortune-teller places 41 white beans onto a flat surface, dividing them into smaller groups using a complex set of rules. The resulting number of beans in each group is then interpreted as a favorable or unfavorable sign for the different aspects of life represented by each of the groups. Both Russian and Bosnian methods are remarkably similar, and likely share a common origin. Since the method is not present in the West, it is possible that the origin might be in the Middle East. A similar method exists in Iran, involving 53 peas.

References

Divination {{occult-stub