Scapulimancy

Scapulimancy (pronounced skap-yuh-luh-man-see)

Divination of the future by observation of the cracking of a mammal's scapula (the shoulder blade, the bone connecting the clavicle to the humerus), sometimes after having been heated by fire or a hot instrument.

1870–1875: The construct was scapul(a) + -i- + -mancy.  Scapula was from the Late Latin scapula (shoulder), from the Classical Latin scapulae (shoulders).  The -mancy suffix was from the Latin -mantīa, ultimately from the Ancient Greek μᾰντείᾱ (manteíā) (divination).  In English it was appended to convey the sense either of (1) divination or (2) in fantasy, varieties of magic, especially those controlling or related to specific elements, substances, or themes.  The synonym is omoplatoscopy and the alternative spelling scapulomancy.  Scapulimancy is a noun, scapulimantic is an adjective and scapulimanticly is an adverb.

Sheep shoulder blades.

Divination was from the Latin divinare (to foresee, foretell or predict; tom make prophesy) and is a general term describing attempts to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice, usually involving either (1) some object or objects in which special qualities are said to be vested, (2) an alleged contact or interaction with supernatural entities or agencies such as spirits, gods, god-like-beings or the other forces “of the universe” or (3) the interpretation of signs or omens, variously defined.  As a cultural practice, divination has been identified in many cultures and at the root of it is probably a desire to have explained what is by all other means available, inexplicable.  That obviously offers some potential for exploitation by those seeking social, political or religious authority but it can also be a business model and between that and religion especially, there’s historically been some overlap, something alive and well today.  The notion of using the shoulder blades of slaughtered animals for this purpose may seem strange but as a method it seems no more or less convincing than instruments such as the tea-leaf, rune stones, Tarot-cards or the movement of objects in the heavens, some billions of miles remote from the apparent randomness of events on Earth.

Butchered & dressed lamb shoulder chops (left) and lamb shoulder chops with garlic and rosemary (right).

Although much-associated with priests, magicians and prophets (again, the overlap not hand to find), divination was practiced also by those for whom religion (in the way the word is conventionally understood) wasn’t a significant force.  The Hun of the Eurasian steppe, best remembered for their fifth century invasion of the Roman Empire, may have Turkic language (though one much infused with words from others), are known to have never developed writing and never seem to have flirted beyond the vaguest with God or gods, the only devotional aspect of their culture a kind of “nature worship”, something which would probably now attract much sympathy.  There may though have been something of a cargo-cult in that various objects seem to have been associated with a kind of veneration, notably swords or weapons linked with military success and generals down the ages, however practical and pragmatic they might have been in other matters, are recorded by historians or in diaries as being fond of consulting soothsayers the night before a battle.  The Huns definitely practiced scapulimancy, the logs of travelers and merchants recording how a shaman-like figure would take from the fire the shoulder blades of the roasted sheep, “reading the patterns” on the surface to make predictions for the days, the foretold omens revealed by pits, stains ridges & hollows which made each bone as unique as a finger-print.  This use for the sheep’s scapula adds another layer to the oft-repeated observation about the reductive efficiency of the steppe peoples in the husbanding of their scare resources: “For some purpose, they used every part of the sheep”.  Because the Huns left no written records, all that is known of their scapulimantic technique comes from third-party observers but as far as is known, their practice was in the “pyromantic” tradition (the “preparing” of the bone by leaving it for a time in the embers of the cooking fire), the “apyromantic” (examination after the flesh had been cut from the bone) method most known in Europe & Northern Africa.  Both these descriptions came from the work of nineteenth century anthropologists.

Lohanic scapulae; a tetrad:  Four photographs of Lindsay Lohan's shoulder blades.

It’s not only in the post-Enlightenment West that divination has (mostly) been dismissed as silly superstition, many thinkers from Antiquity pointing out in their writings the absurdity of the idea and their most effective criticism was probably not the abstract arguments philosophers usually can’t resist but a simple “fact-checking”: comparing predictions with outcomes, the success rate found predictably low.  In the text of one sceptic however, there appears to be the first mention of the efficacy, even in the age of climate change, of one reliable prediction about the weather: “three times out of four, the weather tomorrow will be much the same as today.” (YMMV).  However, despite the two-thousand-odd years of intellectual scorn, the lure of prediction by dubious means remains strong, some otherwise respectable publications regularly including a horoscope, even though there’s nothing to suggest astrology is otherwise taken seriously.  It seems star-sighs exert a special fascination and many identify with their birth sign and read the horoscope, even if usually for amusement.  For some though it’s serious.  Nancy Reagan (1921–2016; US First Lady 1981-1989) regularly consulted an astrologer (on the White House payroll for a reputed US$3000 a month) after one warned her husband Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) would be “in danger” on a certain day; on that day he survived an assassination attempt.

Others couldn’t quite decide.  Being interviewed by a prison psychologist in 1945, Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi Deputy Führer 1933-1941) claimed he’d made his bizarre attempt to secure a negotiated peace between Germany on the UK (his flight to Scotland in May 1941 on the eve of the Nazi’s invasion of the Soviet Union) because the year before “…one of his astrologers had read in the stars that he was ordained to bring about peace”, adding that both Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) and Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS 1929-1945) “…had come to have an abiding belief in astrology.”  It was a claim he would repeat to a journalist in the 1980s.  Despite that, as soon as the news of the flight was brought to Hitler at the Berghof (the Führer’s alpine retreat in the Bavarian Alps) the party hierarchy instantly was summoned from Berlin and the scramble was on to find the most plausible way to spin to the world an explanation why the “second man in the Reich” had delivered himself to the enemy.  In the circumstances, madness probably was the best option and the task was made easier by the British who made no attempt to exploit the defection for propaganda purposes.  Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) put out a statement saying Hess had fallen under the influence “…of soothsayers and fortune-tellers” and had become “...a deluded, deranged and muddled idealist, ridden with hallucinations traceable to World War (ie the 1914-1918 conflict) injuries.”  Immediately, just to make things more plausible still, the state security apparatus (a well-oiled machine) conducted a crackdown on soothsayers and fortune-tellers, locking up many until the scandal had passed which it did remarkable quickly.

All must have been forgiven by 1945 when in the Führerbunker Goebbels, after reminding Hitler of the “miracle of the House of Brandenburg” when the death of a czarina had saved Frederick II (Frederick the Great, 1712–1786, Prussian king 1740-1786) from defeat, consulted two horoscopes kept in the files, one written on 9 November 1918 (the date on which the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) was formed), the other from 30 January 1933 (the date Hitler was appointed chancellor).  According to Goebbels, both documents predicted “…the outbreak of the war in 1939, the victories until 1941, and the subsequent series of reversals, with the hardest blows during the first months of 1945, particularly during the first half of April.  In the second half of April we were to experience a temporary success.  Then there would be stagnation until August and peace that same month.  For the following three years Germany would have a hard time, but starting in 1948 she would rise again.”  Confident that “…according to historical logic and justice things were bound to change”, he must have felt vindicated a few days later when the new broke of the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945); history had given Goebbels his czarina: “Bring out our best champagne!” he commanded, adding “And get me the Fuehrer on the telephone!”  Unfortunately for Goebbels, while he might have felt he wrote his will across the sky, the stars dimmed and fell, the horoscopes no more a reliable predictor of the future than scorched shoulder blades.