Divination (Ifa) is practiced to explain misfortunes and help to prevent them. The diviner, in consulting a diety, manipulates sixteen palm nuts, reads the patterns they form and marks the results on a divination board sprinkled with wood dust. The marks indicate verses that should be chanted as prayers. .The bowls are used to hold kola nuts as offerings of hospitality or as receptacles for the sixteen sacred palm nuts used in divination.