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NOTES AND QUERIES
to the top of the inscribed bamboos. The inscriptions seemed to be in pairs, three pieces with different writing on the right and again three on the left, similarly written.
After this was done, wine was poured in three cups and tea poured in the other three, the candles lit, and the geomancer took up his position at the head of the table and started his incantation.
After about five minutes of prayer he seized the young live cockerel by the head in his left hand, and taking hold of the nail from the rice bowl, plunged it into the cockerel's eye. On the impact the young cockerel almost struggled free, fighting so hard that the geomancer had to tighten his grip and to push the nail in its eye once more. With a crunching noise he pierced the nail right through the cockerel's head and out of the other eye. Thereupon the cockerel ceased struggling and lay limp, as if dead.
Still holding the cockerel with the nail through its head in his left hand, he ordered the Village Representative and his assistant to place the bamboos in the two pots with sand, three in each pot with a cup of tea. He sprinkled some of the blood from the cockerel's eyes on the bamboos and then nailed the cockerel on to a tree, suspended by this nail through its eyes. Joss paper was then burnt under the tree, wine was poured on the ground in front of the tree, and crackers were fired.
The geomancer then took the cockerel off the tree and more crackers were fired. Holding it in his left hand, he pulled the nail out with his right, and put some water from the rice bowl in the cockerel's blinded eyes with his finger. Crackers were set off again. The limp cockerel was placed on the ground and the geomancer then filled his mouth with water from the rice bowl and blew on the cockerel twice, hitting it on the rump at the same time. Surprisingly enough, the cockerel got up and started staggering about, not knowing where to go, as it was still dazed and couldn't see.
One of the pots with the three bamboos was then taken up by the Village Representative on the geomancer's instructions. They brought it to the end of the village and placed it under a tree chosen by the geomancer. The assistant then went with a pick and started digging into the hillside behind the village at intervals of about ten feet. Then the other pot with the other three bamboos...