People seeking answers from the invisible realms would carve symbols into strips of wood cut from the branch of a fruit-bearing tree. The carved strips were then scattered onto a white cloth. The reader of the signs would pick up three of the strips while looking upward “toward heaven,” so as to be sure to choose at random, with the gods’ guidance. If the divination was publicly held, the reader was the community priest. In private readings, the male head of the family would choose and interpret the symbols.
