ALLAN YOUNG

ORDER, ANALOGY, A N D E F F I C A C Y IN E T H I O P I A N M E D I C A L
DIVINATION l

ABSTRACT An important source of the efficacy of techniques for managing sickness is

their capacity for symbolically ordering the disordered states associated with disease. (The
ability to give empirical proofs is another source.) This article describes the symbolic
ordering worked by a method of divination that is practiced by the Amhara of Ethiopia.
Emphasis is given to indicating how order is accomplished through linking disease with
phenomenological domains that are remote from the biophysical locus of sickness. The
point is made that ordering and linking depend on processes of analogy.

1. INTRODUCTION

This article is about the efficacy of certain Ethiopian medical practices. In this
introduction, I want to indicate what meaning is intended for 'symbolic' and
'efficacy', and what relationship is assume d to link these two words.
' E f f i c a c y ' - applied to practices intended to treat or prevent i l l n e s s - can
have at least three meanings. First, it can describe, according to scientific
standards of evidence, practices which are responsible for ending or preventing
disease symptoms. Second, it can refer to practices which appear to have
produced the desired effects. Here proof is empirical, in the sense that beliefs and
assumptions are confirmed through everyday experience. Such explanations may
be merely plausible, since there are no special conditions of evidence (such as
Karl Popper's stipulation of falsifiable hypotheses for scientific proofs). Consider
this example: People believe that a particular syndrome (S) generally results in
death (D) if left untreated (S ~ D). For practical and social reasons, medical
intervention (I) always occurs, however, and it is generally followed by a
remission (R) of symptoms (S ~ I ~ R). (Intervention consists of any practice
intended to bring a remission.) Since intervention always occurs, there are no
instances of S ~ R. Further, instances of S ~ I ~ D can be explained in ways
that confirm rather than challenge people's assumptions about either the
effectiveness of I or the seriousness of S. Thus, efficacy in this sense includes
intervention against self-limiting sicknesses, where a spontaneous remission of
symptoms is likely to occur in any event. Third, efficacy can refer to ways of
managing episodes of sickness or the threat of sickness. This includes making
sick people more comfortable (e.g., administering anodynes) and - what will be
emphasized in the following p a g e s - enabling people to orient themselves to
actual or threatened sickness so that further action is possible.
The different meanings of efficacy are not so distinct as it seems at first.

Culture, Medicineand Psychiatry 1, (1977) 183-199.All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 1977 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland.
184 ALLAN YOUNG

Sometimes it is difficult to decide whether behavior is efficacious in the first or

second sense, whether a practice, or particular element of a practice, 'really'
works or whether its success is only a matter of appearances. (See, for example,
Samuel Lipton's remarkable essay 'On the Psychology of Childhood Tonsillec-
tomy' (Lipton 1962), particularly his analysis of the imagery formerly associated
with the diseased tonsils.) Sometimes it is a problem of distinguishing between
instances of the second and third meanings of efficacy. That is, it may be
uncertain whether people follow a particular practice because they expect it to
reverse or prevent unwanted consequences, or because they find the practice, in
itself, persuasive in some way. These last circumstances can be expected, for
example, where the practice - medical divination is a frequent instance - is only
diffusely empirical, in the sense of directing people to other practices rather than
producing results on it own.
Now to connect efficacy with symbolism. We can broadly define 'symbolic'
as referring to o r d e r i n g - t h a t is contrasting and connecting-otherwise
heterogeneous objects and events, so that coherence and meaning are produced.
While all three senses of efficacy are constituted symbolically then, there are
important differences in how connections are made in each case. In the instance
of scientific proofs, the discovery of order and coherence (e.g., that A is
responsible for the onset of B, so that B occurs only after A) occurs together
with a critical concern over the limits and validity of the discovery (e.g., whether
A is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the onset of B). At the other
extreme, where efficacy refers to managing circumstances rather than producing
results, efficacy is largely equivalent to ordering eventsand objects.
The imputation of symbolic efficacy implies two questions, then. Why is
ordering efficacious? How is order obtained? The scope of this article is limited
to the second question. I do not attempt to deal with the subject of why
ordering is efficacious, except to indicate that neither planning nor action is
possible without order or meaning; that ordering objects and events is a
mechanism for circumscribing the dangers latent in them, and for limiting the
range of their potency; and that, by giving meaning to disturbing events, order
reconfirms a sense of ontological security threatened by these events.
In order to consider how ordering works for one set of practices in one
society the following sections move through these steps: The article's main
substantive interest is a divinatory technique known as awdunigist, and the first
section describes the social and cultural contexts in which this technique is
practiced. The technical operations of awdunigist divination are described in the
following section. The third section describes awdunigist divination's techno-
logical superiority over another frequently used technique, divination through
dreams. The point is also made in this section that dream divination often
creates circumstances of disorder (more precisely, incomplete order) that
 ORDER, ANALOGY, AND EFFICACY 185

increase people's dependence on awdunigist divination. The final sections

analyze the structural properties of awdunigist divination and suggest how these
properties help explain the technique's symbolic efficacy.

2. THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS OF AMHARA DIVINATION

The Amhara are monophysite Christians settled mainly in the central and
northern provinces of highland Ethiopia. I am writing about Amhara who live
around the old imperial capital of Gondar, north of Lake Tana. Amhara men are
traditionally farmers, ecclesiastics, government functionaries, soldiers, and petty
traders. Artisan occupations are derogated to Muslims, Falashas (Jews), and
endogamous Christian minorities. Although urbanism is well established in this
part of Ethiopia, only about 6% of the region's people live in towns with
populations over 2000. Amhara towns are interesting demographically because
of the numerical predominance of women, mainly beer sellers, in them. For over
two millenia, Amhara and their Tigre neighbors to the north have known a
literate tradition, sustained contacts with the civilizations of the Mediterranean
and Red Seas, and lived in centralized states.
According to Arnhara, people can tap extra-ordinary powers with which it is
possible to perform certain medical works. With these powers it is possible to
divine events in the present and future and illuminate the past, in order to
choose therapies and prophylaxes; to send sickness and misfortune, as well as
prevent or end them; and to avoid the dissipation of the healing power of herbal
medicaments while gathering, processing, and administering them. The source of
these powers is spells and prayers, numerological instructions, special objects
(e.g., knives of Arab design and bearing bone handles, for cutting botanicals)
often in the hands of special people such as pre-pubescent boys and
post-menopausal women, and the astrological-numerological reckor~ings known
as awdunigist.
These extra-ordinary powers are distributed among four categories of people.
(a) Any ecclesiastic can annoint sick people with sanctified water, with the hope
that this will repel sickness causing demons. (b) Shamans, with the cooperation
of their zar-spirit familiars, divine and persuade zar spirits to end specific
sickness episodes for which they are responsible. (c) The rural herbalist is usually
a farmer, indistinguishable from his fellows except for his reputation for treating
specific, named ailments. Few herbalists own therapies for more than three or
four ailments, and magical directions are specific for each cure and are inherited
with it. (d) Debtera are a kind of ecclesiastic. While the herbalist's special powers
are limited to retaining the effectiveness of his medicaments, and the annointer's
power goes only so far as repelling demons, and zar shamans can only divine and
end sickness episodes for members of the zar cult, debtera are competent over
186 ALLAN YOUNG

the entire range of extra-ordinary powers. They can perform different kinds of
medical works - predict, prevent, cure; and cause sickness - for a great variety
of ailments, including serious ones for which herbalist cures are rare and
herbalist prophylaxes are absent altogether. It is also debtera who monopolize
the ability to divine with awdunigist texts.
A debtera-diviner usually acquires his awdunigist texts individually. This is
also the way he collects the amulet and herbalist recipes which enable him to
manufacture and sell prophylaxes and therapies appropriate to the information
he divines. Awdunigist repertories vary, then, from diviner to diviner and
'definitive' versions appear to be unknown. Whatever the common historical
origins of these texts might have been, extant texts are the products of many
generations of deletions and additions. Diviners frequently add information
(mainly, it seems, about cures and prophylaxes) to their texts, first inserting it as
marginalia and, after they are satisfied with its efficacy, including it in the text
when it is recopied or transmitted. Sometimes deletions occur when textual
information is transmitted from debtera-seller to debtera-buyer. Details are
occasionally withheld as a way of getting additional payment (usually involving
the exchange of information). During the late 1930s, a collection ofawdunigist
texts was published in Eritrea and copies of this book could still be bought there
in 1966. While no copies were for public sale in Gondar (the center of the region
about which I am writing), at least several local diviners owned dog-eared copies
of the book. There is nothing which distinguishes the form of the printed version
from hand-copied parchment texts, although some diviners deny the
authenticity of the printed version.
Not all debtera own awdunigist texts. Most of those who do not are men who
want to keep their activities strictly ecclesiastical and who derogate debtera-
diviners as occultists and seers (tonkway) whose practices are antithetical to the
teachings of the Church. While debtera-diviners often cite the title of the texts
('The Court of the King') as indicating origins with King Solomon (a great
magician according to Ethiopian tradition), their ecclesiatical detractors trace
awdunigist's beginnings to demonic associations.
As for Amhara laymen, only the most devout question the propriety of
awdunigist divination. The most popular reasons for wanting awdunigist
divination are a person's desire to learn the causes of sicknesses and misfortunes
which are afflicting him rLow; the congenital vulnerabilities which threaten him
with sickness and misfortune in the future; the precise meaning of disturbing
dreams which seem to presage death, disease, and misfortune for the dreamer or
his relatives; the identity of people and other agencies who threaten him with
sickness and misfortune; challenges and opportunities connected with the start
of new ventures (e.g., embarking on a journey, entering into litigation); and the
location of stolen and lost possessions. Once such information has been learned, it
 ORDER, ANALOGY, AND EFFICACY 187

is possible to divine effective course of action, to determine, for example,

appropriate prophylaxes, cures, and magical devices.

3. THE TECHNIQUE OF AMHARA DIVINATION

Each awdunigist text is divided into two parts. The first indicates what
information is needed for the input calculations, and the second consists of a
series of numbered entries, one of which is appropriate to the client's input
information (see Griaule 1934). The most frequently called for categories of
input are names, dates, and places. (1) Each letter of the Amharic syllabary is
given a numerical value, and names are calculated as the sum of the values of
their constituent letters. The client's autonym and patrinym are always required,
and his mother's name is often needed also. Depending on the contingency, the
names of other people may be included. For example, in divination about
litigation, the judge's name is also calculated. (2) The Amhara'group years into
cycles of four, naming each year (zemene) after one of the four evangelists. Each
year is given a numerical value; for example, the year of John (Yowhanis) is
calculated as two. Months, days, and diurnal count (day is six, night is fourteen)
are also numbered. (3) Each of the eight cardinal and intermediary directions is
numbered.
The numerical values of all input information are added and the total is
divided by a factor indicated in the text. It is the numerical remainder which
indicates the entry appropriate to the client. Most divining sessions consist of a
series of trials, in each of which the diviner (1) records his client's input
information by segregating counting beads equivalent to the numerical value of
the information, (2) returns groups of the segregated beads according to the
factor indicated by the text, (3) chooses the appropriate entry in his text
according to the number of beads which remain, (4) evaluates this information
according to how it affects his movement towards the ultimate objective of
choosing a practical course of action, and, with the exception of the final trial,
(5) leafs through his texts in order to find a new vector along which he can
continue to puzzle out a solution.
Broadly speaking, there are two categories of awdunigist texts. The first
consists of synoptic texts which link the client's destiny to one of twelve stars.
For this, the diviner must know the client's name and the year, month, and time
of day of birth. Division is by twelve (remainders are, then, one to twelve). The
following kinds of information can be divined in synoptic texts: ailments and
agents which threaten the client, instructions for manufacturing effective
amulets (kitab) and for choosing the invocations (digam) and talismanic devices
(telsem) to include in them, and information about the choice of medicaments
and sacrifices. The text also includes the following information about the client's
188 ALLAN YOUNG

vulnerabilities: times which are not propitious, bad o m e n s and dangerous places,
and propitious dates, omens, and places.
The following e x c e r p t illustrates the kinds o f i n f o r m a t i o n s y n o p t i c t e x t s tell
about a person's well-being. (I have deleted o t h e r kinds o f i n f o r m a t i o n . ) In this
example, the input remainder is one and, so, the client is a m a n o f the first star,
Hamil Iysat ('intense fire').
The year of Matthew is a bad time. During the month of Timket, sickness threatens his
stomach, head, and leg. He is particularly vulnerable to poison. Serious sickness threatens
when he is fifteen and twenty-two years old; other serious misfortunes threaten when he is
fifty. During the months of Meskarum, Heydar, Megarid, and Sanyey of the year of Luke,
he is liable to suffer pain (wuwgat) and coughing (saal) sickness. When ill, the leaf of the
zigba tree should be used as a fumitory and he should eat the gum which appears at the spot
where the leaf has been picked. Demons and lions are a special danger. Bad days are
Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. If he is to survive an ailment which strikes him on any of
these days, he must have a counter charm (mofte stay) written on parchment prepared from
the skin of a white goat. Treatment of demon-inflicted sickness should include the use of
the (ecclesiastical) text of Seyfe Melicot and the sacrifice of white and red sheep and red
chickens with white markings. Red things are good for him and he must live in a land of red
clay. He has enemies jealous of him and they wish him harm. He always wants to sleep with
women, but if he contracts syphilis (kitin) he is likely to die. When he becomes ill, a brown
and white sheep or a black sheep with white markings on its forehead should be sacrificed,
and he should drink the blood found in the sheep's spleen. He must be careful around fires
and when crossing rivers and lakes. If he takes these precautions, he will live until he is
eighty-two years old; if not, he is likely to die by the age of forty.

Synoptic texts are generally used together with specialized texts, which
elaborate i n f o r m a t i o n learned in the s y n o p t i c ones and enhance the reliability o f
the message divined for the client. Specialized texts can be divided into five
categories according t o the kinds o f i n f o r m a t i o n t h e y c o m m u n i c a t e a b o u t a
person's well-being. (1) These are exclusively medical texts w h i c h c o n t a i n
detailed i n f o r m a t i o n o f prophylactic, diagnostic, and t h e r a p e u t i c i m p o r t a n c e
about the period o f time w h i c h the diviner has e n c o d e d in his i n p u t calculations.
The following is an e n t r y f r o m one of these texts.

On Wednesday, he contracts the sickness while he is eating or bathing. The sickness is caused
by a demon or were-hyena (buda). His head, stomach and heart are affected, his lower back
pains him, and he suffers from chills, rheumatoid pains (kurtimat), diarrhea, nosebleed,
vomiting, and painful cutaneous swellings and ulcers (ibach). After he has been very sick
with these symptoms for twelve days, he is also oppressed by dizziness (ras yazoral) and
nightmares (ki]et) which distort the events of the previous day. These symptoms will come
and go for a year and a half, and he will die in the end. For this ailment, cook and eat the
flesh of a wild fowl (yiseytan dorow), and burn its feathers as an olificant. Good sacrifices
are chickens which are either red, red and gold breasted, or white and black, and tan goats
or sheep or black sheep with white foreheads.

(2) These texts name the saints, angels, and biblical persons w h o are particularly
disposed to assisting the client. The i n f o r m a t i o n is useful for m a n u f a c t u r i n g
amulets and addressing personal petitions t h r o u g h prayer. A sample e n t r y is
 ORDER, ANALOGY, AND EFFICACY 189

"Fear neither demons nor evil men, for the angel Gabrael will be with you." (3)
These texts provide prognoses for the client's ailments. Prognoses are generally
given as combinations of the following oppositions: life vs. death; if life,
complete recovery vs. lingering ailment or disability; if complete recovery, rapid
recovery vs. slow recovery. (4) These texts indicate the pathogenic agents and
named ailments which threaten the client during the period (month and year)
specified by the input calculations. The information is cursory and often mixed
with matters which do not relate to the client's well-being. The following is an
entry from such a text. "Take care during the first two weeks of the month for
which calculations are being made, for your rivals and enemies will surely try to
harm you then. Be watchful for ensorcelling medicine (denkero).'" (5) These
texts provide general indications of the dangers and misfortunes which threaten
the client during the calculated period, but do not indicate what form
misfortune will take. For example, "This month brings great danger, take care."

4. AWDUNIGIST COMPARED WITH DREAM DIVINATION

There are two kinds of dreams, hilim and /cz7et. A hilim is composed of prosaic
events and recognisable people and, if it is properly interpreted, can reveal useful
information about the immediate future. In the kijet, bizarre happenings and
strange actors frighten and distress the dreamer, and no useful information can be
learned. While adults are familiar with the meanings of some dream symbols, the
title 'dream interpreter' (hilirnefoch) is reserved for older people who are
considered particularly knowledgeable. A dream interpreter is consulted when a
man or woman is puzzled by certain ambiguous or contradictory dream events or
when he wishes an expert opinion concerning a series of dreams that seem to refer
to a single individual. Since dreams frequently reveal the dreamer's vulnerabilities,
a man consults only interpreters whom he can trust to respect his confidence.
Hilim dreams contain information about a variety of subjects, including
prosperity, enmity, friendship, honor, marriage and divorce, the birth of
children, and changes in residence. A dominant theme is misfortune in general
and threats to physical well-being in particular. In this section I shall draw my
examples from the latter category.
A dream message indicates, first, the character of the future event and, the
identity of the person to whom the event refers. I was able to collect examples
of six kinds of dreams which give the following information about health,
sickness, and death: (1) The dream foretells a specific ailment. So, drinking talla
beer means poisoning (beer is a favored medium for poison), dressing the hair
with kibe butter means an episode of coughing and catarrh (butter is a common
prophylactic pomade for these symptoms), cooking maize means a pox, fantata,
or primary syphilis, kitT"n (an analogy between the cooked food and the
190 ALLAN YOUNG

pustules?), being stung by an insect means syphilis (an ailment conventionally

traced to contagion through sexual contact), seeing a hut burn until only its
framework remains standing means typhus (wereshiyn). (2) The dream foretells
an unspecified illness. Dream events include being confronted by soldiers, the
temporary loss of livestock or other property, giving birth, coitus, spinning with
the distaff. (3) The dream foretells death, but does not indicate by what means.
Dream motifs include wearing a mourning (short) tonsure, breaking one's arm,
breaking or losing one's tooth, breaking a walking staff (indicating the death of
parents or siblings), breaking the mitad plate used for preparing the staple injera
bread (indicating a husband's death). (4) The dream foretells the death of an
undesignated relative, but does not indicate the means. Dream events include
eating foods prepared from the stomach, lungs, and liver of livestock, and
dancing (associated with celebrations involving kinfolk). (5) The dream foretells
danger from demons (ganel). Dream motifs include goats and nocturnal travels (a
period when demons are particularly active). (6) The dream foretells danger
from humans. Dream events include being invited into the hut of someone
unfriendly to the visitor, being bitten by a black snake.
In most dreams, the event is foretold for the dream actor. Thus, if Berey
dresses her hair with butter in Asfow's dream, it is Berey who is being threatened
with sickness. Only in dreams foretelling death are motifs conventionally
associated with a particular category of people (i.e., the dreamer or some
relative), regardless of who actually appears in the dream.
Certain limitations of Amhara dream interpretation are worth pausing over,
then. (1)Because Amhara believe that there are effective counter-measures
which can be taken against the life-threatening events revealed in dreams, these
dreams generate compelling reasons for adopting a precautionary course of
action. But dream messages are often ambiguous and contradictory. There are no
systematic rules for transforming the meaning of dream events into real events.
While some dream events are inverted (celebration means death, prophylaxis
means sickness), others are matched (mourning tonsure means death), treated
metaphorically (loss of property means death of a kinsman), or obscurely
interpreted (black snake means danger from humans). Nor is there a consensus
about the meaning, or even the relevance, of many dream events. (2) Dream
messages are also incomplete, since they do not contain all the information
needed to work out an effective course of action. Dream messages can contain
information about (a) to whom the message refers, (b) the seriousness of the
misfortune, (c)the misfortune's symptomatic expression, and (d)the disease
name. Because single dreams occur only in the forms a-b, a-b-c, or a-b-c-d, they
are incomplete in two ways. First, they cannot communicate information about
the victim-to-be's idiosyncratic needs (e.g., what sorts of sacrifices will be the
most efficacious for him), although this is sometimes believed to be important.
 ORDER, ANALOGY, AND EFFICACY 191

Second, it is usually necessary to learn (d) before effective counter-measures can

be decided upon, since this information can be translated into important
etiological information about the misfortune-bringer's identity and the nature of
the pathogenic circumstances. Because dream messages are spontaneous and
unsolicited, a person cannot take the initiative to dream new information in
order to decode or elaborate ambiguous or incomplete information (i.e., dreams
in the forms a-b and a-b-c) which he already has. Thus, the victim-to-be often
finds himself in a situation where he feels moved to action (a-b and a-b-c), but
lacks the necessary information to formulate it (d).

5. THE STRUCTURE OF AWDUNIGIST DIVINATION

In the last section, the point was made that, among Amhara, instances of
divining against threat in the future sometimes begin with dreams that the
dreamer feels he cannot ignore. The ability of dreams to compel action is the
product of a combination of attributes. There is, first, the belief that some
dreams (hilim) are a medium for communicating reliable information about the
future. Debtera, for example, covet magical recipes that ostensibly enable them
to dream accurately about whatever subjects they choose. Second, it is
significant that although dream messages are disturbing because they point to
imminent threats to the well-being of the dreamer or his relatives, they also
induce anxiety because their meanings are ambiguous about particulars. That is
to say, dreams not only give impetus to practical activity, such as the purchase
of amulets, but they also impel the dreamer to collect more information or at
least to further refine information already at hand. Even after dreams are
interpreted, however, messages about sickness and misfortune are nearly always
incomplete in the sense that they cannot communicate the kinds of information
that are necessary for deciding what prophylaxis must be obtained.
Amhara turn to awdunigist divination in circumstances where alternatives are
either insufficiently informative (i.e., dream divination), lacking altogether, or
very dangerous and expensive (e.g., extracting information from ganel-demons)
and, if used at all, used after awdunigistdivination proves inadequate (see Young
1975a).
Amhara can choose prophylaxes for certain ailments without recourse to
divination. For example, the epidemiology of were-hyena sickness (yibuda
bashiyta) is believed to be categorical, in the sense that pathogenic were-hyenas
threaten all children. Awdunigist divination is unnecessary, then, for parents
who seek prophylaxis against this ailment. The same is true of therapies for
sicknesses, such as the ailment attributed to the bite of 'mad' dogs, which are
etiologically or symptomatically distinct and for which cures are locally
available. But serious complaints which are not well-defined etiologically or
192 ALLAN YOUNG

symptomatically (for example, persistent generalized internal pain, or persistent

debilitating anxiety) and complaints which have resisted herbalist cures may
have to be divined because there are no feasible alternatives. (Such ailments are
frequently divined as being caused by human or other anthropomorphic agents.)
This is also true if someone wants to uncover future dangers which are particular
to him and not categorical.
But the persistance of awdunigist divination is explained only partly by the
fact that it can either give information that alternative methods cannot or can
give it in a more convienient and less costly way. What we must also learn is why
Amhara are willing to rely on and invest in divined information for deciding on a
particular course of action.
The confidence with which Amhara turn to awdunigist divination reflects the
technique's capacity for bringing people closer to the 'real' order of things, an
understanding of which is indispensible for controlling certain events. 'Reality' is
made by culture in the sense that things are made real by the meaning imputed
to them, and meaning is the product of ordering (systematically contrasting and
connecting objects and events) and confirming (testing the product as an
instrument for satisfying wants in the material world). There are three main
points I want to make about awdunigist divination in this connection. First, it is
through a combination of analogies that Amhara apperceive an order immanent
in the otherwise random course of everyday events. Second, although
awdunigist-divined answers are not ordinarily contradictory, they are often
incomplete enough so that diviner and client are compelled to move through a
series of questions (using a variety of divinatory texts) before the threats hinted
at by the initial answers can be brought to light and confirmed. Third, !n these
ways Amhara divination communicates to diviner and client the image of a
universal grid on which all people and all agencies (including pathogenic threats)
can be located in space and time. The utilization of the grid makes it possible to
account for both the subsequent successes and failures of action based on
divined predictions and, what is more, to account for them in a way which
supports the assumptions underwriting confidence in awdunigist divination.
Before moving on to describe the analogies which operate in awdunigist, it is
necessary to indicate first what 'analogy' is intended to mean. It can be usefully
defined as "any mode of reasoning in which one object or complex of objects is
likened or assimilated to another..._[One of the objects] is generally unknown
or incompletely known, while the other is, or is assumed to be, better
k n o w n . . . " (Lloyd 1966:175). Analogy has two forms. In one, it implies causal
relations between linked objects, in the sense that resemblances give causal
explanations for the lesser known object (e.g., contact with the frog's warty skin
causes warts on human hands). This form of analogy sometimes makes it
possible to control one object by manipulating the analogous other (e.g., in
 ORDER, ANALOGY, AND EFFICACY 193

homeopathic magic). In analogy's second form, one object simply names or

describes the object it resembles (e:g., the 'organic analogy' in functionalist
social theory). The distinction between causal and non-causal forms is frequently
blurred in practice, however, since people often assume a causal relation in
instances of the second form also.
G.E.R. Lloyd, and S.J.'Tambiah after him, have suggested that assumptions
of causality are likeliest when resemblances between linked phenomena are too
striking to be regarded as accidental, as in the case of 'proportional analogy'
(Lloyd 1966:178, 180-182, 435; Tambiah 1973:214-215). Here, analogy takes
the form a:b:c::x:y:z. The relationships between objects or events of
complex 1 (a:b:c) are observed to occur regularly in nature (e.g., the
spatio-temporal relationship between certain astral bodies). The relationships of
complex 2 (x:y:z) are analogized to them in such a way that i f x occurs,y and z
are implied in characteristic w a y s - j u s t as b and c are known to occur in
particular ways when a appears. (Examples of this second kind of analogy can be
found in Foucault's study of the theory of resemblances which dominated
eighteenth century European biological science (Foucault 1970, especially
chapter 3) and in Ogilvie's account of omens and portents in Roman society
(Ogilvie 1969 : chapter 4).)
Awdunigist-divination incorporates both forms of a n a l o g y - causal and
non-causal (but proportional) - by connecting sickness and misfortune, on the
one hand, and stars, elemental oppositions, written language, and numbers, on
the other. In awdunigist (commonly referred to as 'counting stars') mundane
events are linked to or symbolized by a natural phenomenon of great regularity,
the stars. Further, the texts classify the synoptic stars by a combination of
oppositions which enhances the appearance of both orderliness and linkage:
stars one, five and nine have names of fire; two, six and ten names of earth; three,
seven and eleven names of air (wind); and four, eight, and twelve names of
water. It would be misleading to describe awdunigist as an astrological system, on
the order of Indian or European examples, however. In Amhara divination, the
role of the stars (kobob) is strictly formal (i.e., analogy of the second form):
causation is not a well developed aspect of the notions which rationalize
Amhara divination, and the stars of the synoptic texts are attributed no
characteristic force or influence.~ More consequential than the stars in this
regard is divination's capacity for linking everyday events to systems of writing
and mathematical calculation. Like most traditional peoples, the Amhara are
profoundly impressed by the efficacy of writing. Written language's primary
association is with the Church. Until recently, 'book' was most likely to suggest
ecclesiastical literature, and access to reading and writing skills was a near
monopoly of clerics. A second association, derived from the ecclesiastical one, is
with magical names (asmat), mainly through the texts written into the debtera's
194 ALLAN YOUNG

amulets (see Young 1975b). The attribution of power to spirit names reflects a
more general tendency of Amhara to link names to the objects which they
designate. (Other instances include a reluctance to verbalize the names of certain
serious sicknesses (e.g., "kuntina', leprosy, and 'nikersa', septicemia) for fear of
increasing one's vulnerability to them, and the need to spontaneously verbalize
other names (e.g., yililiyt war, bat, for jaundice caused by contact with bat
urine) in the course of certain cures, as a means for expelling introjected disease
substances. F/trther, because written Amharic is syllabic, its 'letters' are more
conspicuously ordered than are those of an alphabetic system. That is to say,
Amharic letters are not arrayed in a simple linear series (as in English:
a-b-c-d-etc.), but into a matrix of cross-cutting properties:

ha huw lily hu he hi how

la luw liy lu le li low
ma muw miy m u m e mi mow
etc.

While only a small minority of Amhara men are literate (at least in more
traditional areas), a large proportion of people are familiar with the rudiments of
the Amharic syllabary. (And it is precisely these rudiments which are likely to
constitute the layman's personal knowledge of written Arnharic.) What the
diviner does, in his client's presence and with texts and counting beads at hand,
is conflate number with letter. Through this technique he sets out in dimensions
of time, space, and person - that is, the main categories of input information -
a universal grid of possible situations which incorporates and connects all people,
places, and times. (Laymen are unaware that the awdunigist repertories of
debtera-diviners are by no means uniform.) Again and again the diviner moves
across the grid, each time approaching from a different angle with new input and
different texts. He traces out all of the strands which lead to his client,
intersecting them to confirm dangers (e.g., the synoptic text links the client to
sorcerers, text x repeats the warning, text y indicates that his vulnerabilities are
greatest during the year of Luke, and text z adds that should he fall victim, he is
likely to die) and construct a comprehensive defense (e.g., text a indicates that
the angel Mikael will be particularly responsive to the client's appeals, text b
links his welfare to sacrifices which combine black with white). "A diviner uses
awdunigist as he would adjust the rangefinder on his rifle," was one
conceptualization made to me by a debter-diviner. These relationships are
summarized in Figure 1.
Awdunigist is persuasive not simply because'it orders objects and events, but
also because it is used to confirm the order and, in this way, to support
assumptions and implications of causality between its analogical sets. (a)One
 O R D E R , A N A L O G Y , AND E F F I C A C Y 195

Through conflation and analogy, awdunigist structures input

information into a universal grid of objects, events, and forces:

OPERATIONS CONFLATE ANALOGIES L I N K

language TO names, therefore objects
WITH
numbers

TO events

stars
WITH
oppositions TO agencies~forces

Fig. 1. Organization of elements in awdunigist divination.

reason for Amhara confidence in divination is the fact that it is empirically

effective. In many instances where it is used for selecting cures, divination works
because it is employed against self-limiting sicknesses, that is, ailments from
which the sick person is likely to recover even without medical intervention.
Regarding the divination of prophylaxes, the matter is simpler still since defenses
are being erected against contingencies which are unlikely to happen anyway.
But because divination is an instrument of offense as well as defense, eWm when
therapy or prophylaxis chosen through awdunigist fails, Amhara do not conclude
that divination, or even the diviner, is ineffective: awdunigist can be used to
discover the vulnerabilities of one's enemies in order to choose the most
effective strategy for harming them, and Amhara are careful to guard personal
information which other people could calculate against them on awdunigist.
While it is difficult to imagine a situation where someone other than a diviner
would attempt to elicit such information, the possibility that someone will
divine this way is a real fear. Debtera-diviners, for example, frequently assume
professional pseudonyms in order to protect themselves from the calculations of
rival diviners. Since most effective ensorcelling and all offensive divining are also
performed by debtera (but not by all debtera-diviners), the failure of therapy or
prophylaxis chosen through awdunigist can be interpreted as evidence that
someone has divined very well indeed and is employing sorcery resources which
are superior to the sick person's therapy or prophylaxis. Also, it should be
remembered that divination is only one part of a process intended to protect or
restore the client. Failure is equally attributable to, say, the skill with which an
amulet has been manufactured or the care with which it has been worn (for
example, that it never becomes so wet that the writing sewn into it becomes
obscured, or that it is properly buried over the new year). (b) A second kind of
proof is that what is explicitly connected in awdunigist also appearsfragmented
196 ALLAN YOUNG

and unarticulated, but magically potent, in other practical activities. Numero-

logical instructions are the most important instances of this. They have an
important and pervasive part in performing magical invocations, manufacturing
prophylactic amulets, and gathering, processing, and administering medicaments.
They are valued as means for both concentrating the powers intrinsic to
medicaments and preventing these powers from diffusing. For example, these are
typical instructions for the sort of herbalist recipes owned by most peasants:
"Cut three samples of a parasitic plant from each of three trees, removing them
in such a way that they do not come into contact with the earth. Boil the plants
in a pot resting on three riverine stones until the volume of the infusion has been
reduced to one in seven. Drink the infusion on each of seven consecutive
nights." From the layman's point of view, neither the combination of numbers
(3 x 3,3, 1 : 7, 7) nor the association of numbers with medicaments and processes
has a readily ascertainable meaning. As with the stars, the link between numbers
and the everyday world is formal, and there is no well-known theoretical
literature analogous to the Book of Creation (Sefer Yetsirah) of the Judaic
gematria describing the cosmological priority of number and letter. The efficacy
of numbers in the recipe is intrinsic, the combinations and associations are
contingent to it, and there is no technique for changing them without also
reducing the recipe's effectiveness. This recipe is also interesting because of its
references to the elemental potency of water (riverine stones) and earth (contact
with which is forbidden during gathering and processing).

6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Amhara divine against sickness and misfortune by means of sequences of

questions and techniques. The diviner's aim is to discover the categories of
agents and events which threaten his client. Information is divined in a
mechanical way, in private settings, and the divinatory act is not ritually exalted
(cf. Park 1963:199-203). Clients carefully guard divined information from
disclosure to other people.
The questions of why Amhara want to divine information about problems of
sickness and misfortune and why they are willing to rely on divined information
for deciding among possible courses of action can be answered by studying how
sequences of questions and techniques are patterned in divination and comparing
the organization of efficacious symbols in divination and in the therapies and
prophylaxes which they help to choose.
Simply because people have divinatory techniques available to them does not
mean that they necessarily have any great faith in them. Forge's comments on
Abelam (new Guinea) divination make it clear that skepticism on this subject is
not confined to industrial society (Forge 1970:264). But it seems that Amhara
 ORDER, ANALOGY,AND EFFICACY 197

are convinced of the efficacy of divination, since most people are willing to
make substantial investments on the basis of divined information. For example,
in many instances Amhara divine in order to choose an amulet. Although most
adult Amhara buy and wear numerous amulets throughout their life-times, the
decision to buy one is not casually made. Amulets are usually fairly specific for
causal agents and dangerous events, and they are often expensive. A poor choice
means both needless expense and a lost opportunity for protecting one's self
from real threats.
If, then, awclunigist divination convinces, why does it convince? I have
suggested two interdependent explanations.
(1)Awdunigist divination is empirically efficacious. Sometimes it gives
proofs. Although it sometimes makes predictions and directs choices in such a
way that its efficacy cannot be confirmed by concrete events, it is also true that
its efficacy cannot be confuted by events.
(2) Awdunigist divination is simultaneously a metaphor for communicating
and connecting concepts of world order with notions of immanent power and an
expression of this power.
The empirical character of medical beliefs and practices in tribal and
traditional societies is significant in the following ways: it implies that medicine
is rationally organized in these societies. That is, the system of beliefs about
sickness and healing is, in each case, internally consistent and does not conflict
with observed events. It asserts a dialectical, rather than direct, link between
medical beliefs and practices and the biophysical and mental states that Western
medicine recognizes to constitute sickness. Finally, it implies that there are
instances - and awdunigist divination is one - in which people do not necessarily
expect their practices to result in cures or to prevent sickness.
This last point leads to the question, Why do practices that give only diffusely
empirical evidence of their efficacy persist? In the case of awdunigist divination,
the answer is that it makes congeries of events and objects coherent by imposing
an order on them. In this way, awdunigist divination makes planning and action
possible, and it circumscribes and limits the dangers latent in these events. The
capacity for formally ordering events is a necessary but not sufficient condition
for explaining why people rely on a particular practice, however. A practice
must also be persuasive. That is, if it cannot demonstrate its empirical efficacy, it
must be able to demonstrate its intrinsic validity.
Awdunigist is persuasive, in part, because it shares the same or similar
technical operations with the events and objects (i.e., therapies, prophylaxes,
ensoreelling) that it divines. The link between awdunigist and its objects is not
only formal and abstract, however. It is made tangible and concrete through the
nature of the specialists, the debtera, who monopolize it. Among Amhara,
extra-ordinary powers are distributed among four categories of people. While the
198 ALLAN YOUNG

herbalist's powers are limited to conserving the effectiveness of his medica-

ments, and the annointer's power can only repel demons, and the shaman's
power can only divine and help members of the zar cult, the debtera is
competent over the entire range of extra-ordinary powers. Only he can predict,
prevent, cure and cause a wide variety of sicknesses and misfortunes. Laymen
attribute a debtera's broad range of competence to his ability to tap generic
powers - that is, extra-ordinary powers (in some instances, traced to demonic
sources) which are capable of being used for a variety of goals - and contrast
these to the narrowly circumscribed powers of laymen such as herbalists and
dream interpreters.
Finally, the persistance of awdunigist divination can be explained by its
relative non-substitutability. That is to say, while awdunigist divination is
superfluous for choosing cures and prophylaxes in some circumstances, it is
indispensible in others. This technique has an interesting limitation, however,
since it does not consider all the etiologies which might be responsible for the
complaints and misfortunes which clients bring to debtera. More specifically, it
has no output which would implicate zar spirits. (For an explanation of this, see
Young 1975a.) This has two consequences. First, because awdunigist output
coincides with the range of the debtera's other medical works, it means that
awdunigist output usually leads the client to choose a therapy or prophylaxis
prepared by a debtera. Second, by choosing awdunigist divination, an Amhara
does not expose himself to the danger of being recruited into the zar cult - a
thoroughly contemptible fate in the eyes of Amhara men - since entry into the
cult is generally the 'cost' of being cured of an ailment inflicted by zar spirits.
Seen from the perspective of contemporary Western medical beliefs and
practices, Amhara medical divination is characterized by two unusual features. It
divines against a range of contingencies which lumps sickness together with an
odd lot of misfortunes, including theft and litigation. (Just as the debtera's
extra-ordinary powers extend beyond medical goals, to magically attract
desiderata, to perform feats such as metamorphizing objects and flying through
the air, or to magically disposing influential people to his or his client's
interests.) It produces order through processes of analogy. But it does this by
linking disease to phenomenological domains (stars, numbers, letters) that are
remote from the biophysical locus of sickness.
These features reflect a set of circumstances which appear to be common to
most tribal and traditional societies (Young 1976). (The great traditions of
India, China, and the Islamic Middle East are not included among these, of
course.) In such societies, 'sickness' does not constitute a unitary phenomeno-
logical domain, distinct from other forms of misfortune. This seems to be related
to the fact that sickness there is not equivalent to the intrasomatic events that it
generally is in the West. Thus, Amhara cures for serious ailments often depend
more on the healer's ability to affect circumstances outside the sick person's
 O R D E R , A N A L O G Y , AND E F F I C A C Y 199

b o d y t h a n on his p o w e r for directly ordering events w i t h i n the b o d y . Diagnosis

c o n c e n t r a t e s on discovering w h a t events could have b r o u g h t or could bring t h e
client to the a t t e n t i o n o f possible p a t h o g e n i c agents ( m a n y o f w h i c h are
purposive and anthropomorphized misfortune-bringers), and therapies and
p r o p h y l a x e s w o r k t h r o u g h appeals to p o w e r f u l supernaturals or a t t e m p t to
neutralize p a t h o g e n i c agents w h i c h are causing sickness at a distance.

Case Western Reserve University

NOTES
1. The field research on which this article is based was conducted from January to
December 1966 and was supported by a Public Health Service Research Grant and
Fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health.
2. Ecclesiastics other than debtera-diviners sometimes contend that astrological influence of
some sort is implied, and is therefore an example of false belief, when awdunigist is used.

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(Received 30 October, 1976)