Geomancy
Divination with sixteen figures of dots or lines, from the Arabic science of sand, widely used in Europe and Africa.
Also: ilm al-raml, sand divination, sikidy, khatt al-raml
Western geomancy builds a chart from random lines of dots, making four-line figures with names such as Via and Populus, which are combined into a shield of sixteen. It came from the Arabic ilm al-raml, the science of sand, and reached Europe in Latin translations in the 1100s; Renaissance scholars gave it astrological links. The same system travelled south: in Madagascar it became sikidy, practised with seeds, and in West Africa Arabic-derived sand divination sits beside Ifa and other local systems. Practitioners in these regions have their own meanings and rules. Do not confuse it with Chinese feng shui, which English writers also call geomancy, though the two are unrelated.