Favomancy

Favomancy is a form of divination that used to be practised by seers in Russia, in particular, among the Ubykh. The practice involves throwing beans on the ground and interpreting the patterns in which the beans fall; it is therefore a type of cleromancy. Russian methods of favomancy may still exist; however, since the departure of the Ubykhs from the Caucasus in 1864, details of exactly how Ubykh soothsayers interpreted the patterns formed by the beans are lost.

Etymology

Favomancy comes from the Latin faba "bean" and formed by analogy with the names of similar divination methods such as alectromancy. The Ubykh term for a favomancer simply means "bean-thrower", and later became a synonym for all soothsayers and seers in general.

References