The power to see beyond the veil, or to interact with creatures from the otherworld, is known to be a hereditary trait, restricted to a few families.
The ritual followed of the soothsayers began with the wizard inhaling the fumes of burning tshili, a kind of firewood, which gives off a very large amount of smoke when it is lit.
Goats-milk or milk from a white sheep is then poured into the fire, and the Dayyal, or the Wizard, inhales the smoke from the burning logs till he passes out.
A spectator is chosen at random, and the Dayyal is made to lie down on the hearth with his head in the chosen spectator’s lap. The spectator sings a song that is said to bring the Dayyal back to his senses.
As the Dayyal is being sung too, a goat is slaughtered. The moment the Dayyal wakes up, the bleeding, severed head of the goat is presented to him, on which he sucks on, till only one drop of blood remains in it.
The musicians gathered around the fire begin to play loudly on the cue, and the Dayyal whirls around and dances in a circle around the fire, chanting a mantra.
It is then when a fairy appears in the distance and sings. This song is only heard by the Dayyal, who then sings the song to a musician. The musician, in turn, explains what the couplets mean to the spectators.
It is said that Dayyals were often called upon to advise in serious events, such as when a disease befalls someone. It is said that in ancient times, Dayyals invariably foretold and spoke correctly, however, later on, barely one out of a hundred sayings turn out to be true.
In my opinion, a very plausible reason that the aforementioned reason for the decline in the belief also had to do with the fact that Islam forbids fortune-telling, and rejects the concept of peaking into the future altogether.
