precisely the same ritual in the initiations.  Here, then, not to
multiply examples, we discover two singular features in common between
Greek and savage mysteries.  Both Greeks and savages employ the
bull-roarer, both bedaub the initiated with dirt or with white paint or
chalk.  As to the meaning of the latter very un-Aryan practice, one has
no idea.  It is only certain that war parties of Australian blacks bedaub
themselves with white clay to alarm their enemies in night attacks.  The
Phocians, according to Herodotus (viii. 27), adopted the same 'aisy
stratagem,' as Captain Costigan has it.  Tellies, the medicine-man
([Greek]), chalked some sixty Phocians, whom he sent to make a night
attack on the Thessalians.  The sentinels of the latter were seized with
supernatural horror, and fled, 'and after the sentinels went the army.'
In the same way, in a night attack among the Australian Kurnai, {41a}
'they all rapidly painted themselves with pipe-clay: red ochre is no use,
it cannot frighten an enemy.'  If, then, Greeks in the historic period
kept up Australian tactics, it is probable that the ancient mysteries of
Greece might retain the habit of daubing the initiated which occurs in
savage rites.

'Come now,' as Herodotus would say, 'I will show once more that the
mysteries of the Greeks resemble those of Bushmen.'  In Lucian's Treatise
on Dancing, {41b} we read, 'I pass over the fact that you cannot find a
single ancient mystery in which there is not dancing. . . . To prove this
I will not mention the secret acts of worship, on account of the
uninitiated.  But this much all men know, that most people say of those
who reveal the mysteries, that they "dance them out."'  Here Liddell and
Scott write, rather weakly, 'to dance out, let out, betray, probably of
some dance which burlesqued these ceremonies.'  It is extremely
improbable that, in an age when it was still forbidden to reveal the
[Greek], or secret rites, those rites would be mocked in popular
burlesques.  Lucian obviously intends to say that the matter of the
mysteries was set forth in ballets d'action.  Now this is exactly the
case in the surviving mysteries of the Bushmen.  Shortly after the
rebellion of Langalibalele's tribe, Mr. Orpen, the chief magistrate in
St. John's Territory, made the acquaintance of Qing, one of the last of
an all but exterminated tribe.  Qing 'had never seen a white man, except
fighting,' when he became Mr. Orpen's guide.  He gave a good deal of
information about the myths of his people, but refused to answer certain
questions.  'You are now asking the secrets that are not spoken of.'  Mr.
Orpen asked, 'Do you know the secrets?'  Qing replied, 'No, only the
initiated men of that dance know these things.'  To 'dance' this or that
means, 'to be acquainted with this or that mystery;' the dances were
originally taught by Cagn, the mantis, or grasshopper god.  In many
mysteries, Qing, as a young man, was not initiated.  He could not 'dance
them out.' {42}

There are thus undeniably close resemblances between the Greek mysteries
and those of the lowest contemporary races.

As to the bull-roarer, its recurrence among Greeks, Zunis, Kamilaroi,
Maoris, and South African races, would be regarded, by some students, as
a proof that all these tribes had a common origin, or had borrowed the
instrument from each other.  But this theory is quite unnecessary.  The
bull-roarer is a very simple invention.  Anyone might find out that a bit
of sharpened wood, tied to a string, makes, when whirred, a roaring
noise.  Supposing that discovery made, it is soon turned to practical
use.  All tribes have their mysteries.  All want a signal to summon the
right persons together and warn the wrong persons to keep out of the way.
The church bell does as much for us, so did the shaken seistron for the
Egyptians.  People with neither bells nor seistra find the bull-roarer,
with its mysterious sound, serve their turn.  The hiding of the
instrument from women is natural enough.  It merely makes the alarm and
absence of the curious sex doubly sure.  The stories of supernatural
consequences to follow if a woman sees the turndun lend a sanction.  This
is not a random theory, without basis.  In Brazil, the natives have no
bull-roarer, but they have mysteries, and the presence of the women at
the mysteries of the men is a terrible impiety.  To warn away the women,
the Brazilians make loud 'devil-music' on what are called 'jurupari
pipes.'  Now, just as in Australia, _the women may not see the jurupari
pipes on pain of death_.  When the sound of the jurupari pipes is heard,
as when the turndun is heard in Australia, every woman flees and hides
herself.  The women are always executed if they see the pipes.  Mr.
Alfred Wallace bought a pair of these pipes, but he had to embark them at
a distance from the village where they were procured.  The seller was
afraid that some unknown misfortune would occur if the women of his
village set eyes on the juruparis. {44}

The conclusion from all these facts seems obvious.  The bull-roarer is an
instrument easily invented by savages, and easily adopted into the ritual
of savage mysteries.  If we find the bull-roarer used in the mysteries of
the most civilised of ancient peoples, the most probable explanation is,
that the Greeks retained both the mysteries, the bull-roarer, the habit
of bedaubing the initiate, the torturing of boys, the sacred obscenities,
the antics with serpents, the dances, and the like, from the time when
their ancestors were in the savage condition.  That more refined and
religious ideas were afterwards introduced into the mysteries seems
certain, but the rites were, in many cases, simply savage.  Unintelligible
(except as survivals) when found among Hellenes, they become intelligible
enough among savages, because they correspond to the intellectual
condition and magical fancies of the lower barbarism.  The same sort of
comparison, the same kind of explanation, will account, as we shall see,
for the savage myths as well as for the savage customs which survived
among the Greeks.




THE MYTH OF CRONUS.