Translations:Gender-variant identities worldwide/90/en

There are many diviners among the Scythians, who divine by means of many willow wands as I will show. They bring great bundles of wands, which they lay on the ground and unfasten, and utter their divinations as they lay the rods down one by one; and while still speaking, they gather up the rods once more and place them together again; this manner of divination is hereditary among them. The Enarees, who are hermaphrodites [sic, this does not necessarily mean intersex, as it is a common mistranslation for words about all kinds of gender variance], say that Aphrodite [that is, Artimpasa] gave them the art of divination, which they practise by means of lime-tree bark. They cut this bark into three portions, and prophesy while they braid and unbraid these in their fingers.[1]

  1. Herodotus, The Histories IV. 67