Mongolian divination - online!

I've been using a Mongolian (and other Central Asian, probably) divination system called shagai ever since I picked up a set the year the Smithsonian Folklife Festival theme was "The Silk Road"*. It works pretty well for me for questions that are simpler than Tarot-level.

"Shagai" in Mongolian means the astragalus (anklebone) of a sheep or goat, and doesn't just mean the divination system; there are many Mongolian traditional games played with them. At least one of the shagai games has been added to the Mongolian Naadam festival. I only got a chance to play one while we were there- a puzzle game which involved two shagai strung on a thong through a sheep's shinbone**.

And now, monsteralice has found an online version of the divination system!

If you want to know more about the system, cat yronwode's book Throwing The Bones has the standard set of instructions (you can also buy sets from Lucky Mojo), and Sarangarel's*** book Riding Windhorses (which I highly recommend anyway) has a different set of meanings.


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* Interestingly enough, it's possible that Mongolia will be part of the 2015 festival... hope so!
** Which I failed miserably at... can't brain that sort of thing most of the time...
*** Peace and blessings to her spirit.