Fortune telling with forty

Raif Esmerović

THROWING BEANS IN BOSNIA

Fortune telling with forty-one beans

FALANJE U GRAH

THROWING BEANS IN BOSNIA

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Fortune telling with forty-one beans

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One of the most popular methods of fortune-telling in Bosnia and Herzegovina is certainly divination with beans "falanje u grah" or "throwing beans" (bacanje graha). Among the people there are stories that demised Hazrat Fatima secretly performed divination with beans, hiding it from her father Muhammad. On one occasion while Hazrat Fatima predicted the fate of her friend in the room suddenly entered Mohammed. Hazrat Fatima in shock and rush managed to hide under her dress only half of the beans, which were located in front her, therefore since then it is believed that in every divination lies half truth and half lie. It is interesting that one combination of divination is named after her name – “Hazrat Fatima fal”. It is a combination of 333, which represents happiness, marriage and the fulfillment of whish.

Fortune-telling using beans was primarily the activity of Bosniak people, but some Gypsy women also possessed knowledge such a throwing of beans. Practised equally by men and by women or faladžija and faladžinica, the method was used to acquire knowledge of the future.

For divination in the beans fortune teller needs the red patch on which he or she lines up 41 grains of white beans. Before she starts placing the beans on the patch she takes the beans into the right fist , places the fist close to her mouth and recites the prayer: “Rabbi jesir velatu'asir, rabbi temmim bil-hayr” three times and then blows into her fist three times.

The person who makes the prophecy (faladžija) then divided the forty-one pieces into three random groups, removed four pieces at a time from each group until each group contained no more than four pieces, and then placed these remaining pieces alongside each other in a horizontal row. All the other pieces (adding up to a multiple of four) were then recombined and divided again into three random groups, pieces were again removed in quotas of four and a second horizontal row derived from the reminder. The whole operation was then repeated a third time to result in a third row, and these three rows were used to generate the prophecies.

Fortune telling with forty-one beans

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Fortune telling with forty-one beans

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Fortune telling with forty-one beans

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Interpretation numbers and Cups (four grains)

323 – love meeting.

333 – marriage, love.

444 – profit.

414 – sadness.

224 – journey....etc.

Cups or Hatma

9x4 – good luck, joy, happiness.

8x4 – worry (for men), illness, death, loss.

7x4 – contentment, avail.

6x4 – worry (for women).

5x4 – speed, journey.

Fortune telling with forty-one beans

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