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Another method of egg-breaking is for the diviner to wrap up the egg in a plantain leaf with the point uppermost, or merely to hold the egg in his hand in this position without wrapping it up, and then to press another egg down upon it. If the end of the egg so pressed breaks at once, this is a good sign, but if it remains unbroken, the egg has a god in it, and the omen is bad.
Amongst some of the tribes of the Malay Archipelago also the Gaji-Guru or medicine-man "can see from the yolk of an egg, broken whilst sacramentally counting from one to seven, from what illness a man is suffering and what has caused it." Here we have an almost exactly parallel case to the Khasi custom of egg-breaking.
When a Khasi builds a new house, or before he proceeds on a journey, he always breaks eggs to see whether the building or the journey will be lucky or not. The description of egg-breaking given by Shadwell in his account of the Khasis is not altogether correct.
The particular spirit to be propitiated is ascertained; by egg-breaking. The offering acceptable to the spirit is similarly ascertained and is then made. If the particular sacrifice does not produce the result desired, a fowl is sacrificed; the entrails being then examined, an augury is drawn, and the sacrifice begins afresh.