tions."[1] The holy "daunces" at Seville are under Papal disapproval, but are to be kept up, it is said, till the peculiar dresses used in them are worn out. Acosta's Indians also had "garments which served only for this feast." It is superfluous to multiply examples of the dancing, which is an invariable feature of savage as of Greek mysteries.
2. The Greek and savage use of the turndun, or bribbun of Australia in the mysteries is familiar to students. This fish-shaped flat board of wood is tied to a string, and whirled round, so as to cause a peculiar muffled roar. Lobeck quotes from the old scholia on Clemens Alexandrinus, published by Bastius in annotations on St. Gregory, the following Greek description of the turndun, the "bull-roarer" of English country lads, the Gaelic srannam:[2]—"κῶνος ξυλάριον οὗ ἐξῆπται τὸ σπαρτίον καὶ ἐν ταῖς τελεταῖς ἐδονεῖτο ἵνα ῥοιζῇ." "The conus was a little slab of wood, tied to a string, and whirled round in the mysteries to make a whirring noise." As the mystic uses of the turndun in Australia, New Zealand, New Mexico, and Zululand have elsewhere been described at full length (Custom and Myth, pp. 28–44), it may be enough to refer the reader to the passage. Mr. Tylor has since found the instrument used in religious mysteries in West Africa, so it has now been tracked almost round the world. That an instrument so rude should be employed by Greeks and Australians on mystic occasions is in itself a remarkable coincidence. Unfortu-
- ↑ Acosta, Historie of the Indies, book v. chap. xxviii. London, 1604.
- ↑ Pronounced strantham. For this information I am indebted to my friend Mr. M'Allister, schoolmaster at St. Mary's Loch.
