descended and possessed him. At first the god did nothing but brandish the gohei-wand. Gradually he learned to grunt. When I first saw the boy in the latter part of September, the god had got far enough along to grunt quite imposingly. I saw him again on October 28. The sounds had taken on some form. He could then articulate so that you thought he spoke what it was your fault not to understand. By the middle of November, I was told, he would speak distinctly.
The development of the voice is always an acquired art; dumb possession preceding the ability to converse in the trance. It takes the god no inconsiderable time to learn to talk. When he does do so the tone is peculiar. It is not the man's natural voice, but a stilted, cothurnus sort of voice, one which a god might be supposed to use in addressing mere mortals. It would be theatrical were it not sincere. It is the man's unconscious conception of how a god should talk, and commends itself artistically to the imagination.
The possessory gods present certain interesting characteristics. In the first place they
