Why did the ancients use tortoise shells to tell fortunes? _ Why did the ancients use tortoise shells to tell their fortune?

Why did ancient fortune tellers use tortoise shells to tell their fortune?

There are many lines on the turtle's body, and its life span is very long, which makes people think that the turtle is an animal that can ward off disasters and evil spirits.

As we know, there were four kinds of beasts in ancient times: Suzaku, White Tiger, Qinglong and Xuanwu, among which Xuanwu ranked among the four great beasts because of its long life. The ancients believed that the longevity of animals must be related to their own fortune, so they chose turtles to divine. This also reflects that people at that time wanted to get rid of the concept of being bound by natural forces.

In ancient times, fortune-telling with tortoise shells was mainly for peace of mind, smooth career and peace. Divination is already an early witchcraft. Many years ago, due to the underdeveloped economy at that time, people longed for silence and hoped to reduce natural disasters, so this witchcraft of tortoise shell divination was developed. The main purpose of tortoise shell divination was that people at that time could not explain natural disasters, which led to the need to explain them in this way.

Tortoise shell divination is generally used for emperors, mainly to predict war, weather and date of going out ... The main method of divination is to hold a tortoise shell in your hand, then read a spell in your mouth and shake it constantly, and then interpret good or bad according to the specific number and distribution of tortoise shells.

Another method of divination is to burn tortoise shells in the fire. When the tortoise shell is burned with fire, there will be a crack, and then the soothsayer will observe the crack while the tortoise shell makes a noise to judge whether it is good or bad.

In fact, in modern times, we know that tortoise shell is mainly composed of keratin and bone, which is a kind of organic matter in the European Union. After being burned, a kind of mucous membrane will appear, and then it will rupture, so various tortoise shell cracks will appear.