It was held, probably, that the coating of wax prevented the pollution which would have necessarily resulted had the earth come into direct contact with the corpse.
The custom of divining by means of a number of rods appears to have been purely Magian.

There is no trace of it in the Gathas, in the Yagna haptanhaiti, or in the older portions of the Vendidad.

It was a Scythic practice; and probably the best extant account of it is that which Herodotus gives of the mode wherein it was managed by the Scyths of Europe.

"Scythia," he says, "has an abundance of soothsayers, who foretell the future by means of a number of willow wands.

A large bundle of these rods is brought and laid on the ground.