It was a subtle shift, an undercurrent of cool energy that brushed by him, like when Sofi used her voodoo fortune-telling powers around him.
Although punishment by whipping and by standing in the pillory was prohibited by an act of Congress in 1839, in so far as the Federal government had jurisdiction, both these forms of punishment were retained in Delaware, and standing in the pillory was prescribed by statute as a punishment for a number of offences, including various kinds of larceny and forgery, highway robbery, and even pretending " to exercise the art of witchcraft, fortune-telling or dealing with spirits," at least until 1893.
The desire to learn what the future has in store is nearly as old as the sense of responsibility in mankind, and has been the parent of many empirical systems of fortune-telling, which profess to afford positive knowledge whereby the affairs of life may be regulated, and the dangers of failure foretold.
It is probably from their original Indian home that the traditional dukkeripen (fortune-telling) of the gipsies has been derived.
They live principally in boats, travelling from place to place, profess Mahommedanism, and gain their subsistence by wood-cutting in the Sundarbans, fishing, fortune-telling and trading in trinkets.
