conjecture, and possibly enough capable of disproof, but we have a
suspicion that the use of the mystica vannus Iacchi was a mode of raising
a sacred wind analogous to that employed by whirlers of the turndun.
{36b}

Servius, the ancient commentator on Virgil, mentions, among other
opinions, this--that the vannus was a sieve, and that it symbolised the
purifying effect of the mysteries.  But it is clear that Servius was only
guessing; and he offers other explanations, among them that the vannus
was a crate to hold offerings, primitias frugum.

We have studied the bull-roarer in Australia, we have caught a glimpse of
it in England.  Its existence on the American continent is proved by
letters from New Mexico, and by a passage in Mr. Frank Cushing's
'Adventures in Zuni.' {37}  In Zuni, too, among a semi-civilised Indian
tribe, or rather a tribe which has left the savage for the barbaric
condition, we find the bull-roarer.  Here, too, the instrument--a 'slat,'
Mr. Gushing calls it--is used as a call to the ceremonial observance of
the tribal ritual.  The Zunis have various 'orders of a more or less
sacred and sacerdotal character.'  Mr. Cushing writes:--

   These orders were engaged in their annual ceremonials, of which little
   was told or shown me; but, at the end of four days, I heard one
   morning a _deep whirring noise_.  Running out, I saw a procession of
   three priests of the bow, in plumed helmets and closely-fitting
   cuirasses, both of thick buckskin--gorgeous and solemn with sacred
   embroideries and war-paint, begirt with bows, arrows, and war-clubs,
   and each distinguished by his badge of degree--coming down one of the
   narrow streets.  The principal priest carried in his arms a wooden
   idol, ferocious in aspect, yet beautiful with its decorations of
   shell, turquoise, and brilliant paint.  It was nearly hidden by
   symbolic slats and prayer-sticks most elaborately plumed.  He was
   preceded by a guardian with drawn bow and arrows, while another
   followed, _twirling the sounding slat_, which had attracted alike my
   attention and that of hundreds of the Indians, who hurriedly flocked
   to the roofs of the adjacent houses, or lined the street, bowing their
   heads in adoration, and scattering sacred prayer-meal on the god and
   his attendant priests.  Slowly they wound their way down the hill,
   across the river, and off toward the mountain of Thunder.  Soon an
   identical procession followed and took its way toward the western
   hills.  I watched them long until they disappeared, and a few hours
   afterward there arose from the top of 'Thunder Mountain' a dense
   column of smoke, simultaneously with another from the more distant
   western mesa of 'U-ha-na-mi,' or 'Mount of the Beloved.'

   Then they told me that for four days I must neither touch nor eat
   flesh or oil of any kind, and for ten days neither throw any refuse
   from my doors, nor permit a spark to leave my house, for 'This was the
   season of the year when the "grandmother of men" (fire) was precious.'

Here then, in Zuni, we have the bull-roarer again, and once more we find
it employed as a summons to the mysteries.  We do not learn, however,
that women in Zuni are forbidden to look upon the bull-roarer.  Finally,
the South African evidence, which is supplied by letters from a
correspondent of Mr. Tylor's, proves that in South Africa, too, the bull-
roarer is employed to call the men to the celebration of secret
functions.  A minute description of the instrument, and of its magical
power to raise a wind, is given in Theal's 'Kaffir Folklore,' p. 209.  The
bull-roarer has not been made a subject of particular research; very
probably later investigations will find it in other parts of the modern
world besides America, Africa, New Zealand, and Australia.  I have myself
been fortunate enough to encounter the bull-roarer on the soil of ancient
Greece and in connection with the Dionysiac mysteries.  Clemens of
Alexandria, and Arnobius, an early Christian father who follows Clemens,
describe certain toys of the child Dionysus which were used in the
mysteries.  Among these are _turbines_, [Greek], and [Greek].  The
ordinary dictionaries interpret all these as whipping-tops, adding that
[Greek] is sometimes 'a magic wheel.'  The ancient scholiast on Clemens,
however, writes: 'The [Greek] is a little piece of wood, to which a
string is fastened, and in the mysteries it is whirled round to make a
roaring noise.' {39}  Here, in short, we have a brief but complete
description of the bull-roarer of the Australian turndun.  No single
point is omitted.  The [Greek], like the turndun, is a small object of
wood, it is tied to a string, when whirled round it produces a roaring
noise, and it is used at initiations.  This is not the end of the matter.

In the part of the Dionysiac mysteries at which the toys of the child
Dionysus were exhibited, and during which (as it seems) the [Greek], or
bull-roarer, was whirred, the performers daubed themselves all over with
clay.  This we learn from a passage in which Demosthenes describes the
youth of his hated adversary, AEschines.  The mother of AEschines, he
says, was a kind of 'wise woman,' and dabbler in mysteries.  AEschines
used to aid her by bedaubing the initiate over with clay and bran. {40a}
The word [Greek], here used by Demosthenes, is explained by Harpocration
as the ritual term for daubing the initiated.  A story was told, as
usual, to explain this rite.  It was said that, when the Titans attacked
Dionysus and tore him to pieces, they painted themselves first with clay,
or gypsum, that they might not be recognised.  Nonnus shows, in several
places, that down to his time the celebrants of the Bacchic mysteries
retained this dirty trick.  Precisely the same trick prevails in the
mysteries of savage peoples.  Mr. Winwood Reade {40b} reports the
evidence of Mongilomba.  When initiated, Mongilomba was 'severely flogged
in the Fetich House' (as young Spartans were flogged before the animated
image of Artemis), and then he was 'plastered over with goat-dung.'  Among
the natives of Victoria, {40c} the 'body of the initiated is bedaubed
with clay, mud, charcoal powder, and filth of every kind.'  The girls are
plastered with charcoal powder and white clay, answering to the Greek
gypsum.  Similar daubings were performed at the mysteries by the Mandans,
as described by Catlin; and the Zunis made raids on Mr. Cushing's black
paint and Chinese ink for like purposes.  On the Congo, Mr. Johnson found