after purifications the mystæ engaged in sacred dances, and were permitted to view a miracle-play representing the sorrows and consolations of Demeter. The chief features in the whole were purifications, dancing, sacrifice, and the representation of the miracle-play. It would be tedious to offer an exhaustive account of savage rites analogous to these mysteries of Hellas. Let it suffice to display the points where Greek found itself in harmony with Australian, and American, and African practice. These points are—(1) Mystic dances; (2) the use of a little instrument, called turndun in Australia, whereby a roaring noise is made, and the religious are called together; (3) the habit of daubing persons about to be initiated with clay or anything else that is sordid, and of washing this off, apparently by way of showing that old guilt is removed and a new life entered upon; (4) the performances with serpents may be noticed, while the "mad doings" and "howlings" mentioned by Plutarch are familiar to every reader of travels in uncivilised countries.
First, as to the mystic dances, Lucian observes,[1] "You cannot find a single ancient mystery in which there is not dancing. . . . This much all men know, that most people say of the revealers of the mysteries that they 'dance them out' " (ἐξορχεῖσθαι). Clemens of Alexandria uses the same term when speaking of his own "appalling revelations."[2] So closely connected are mysteries with dancing among savages, that when Mr. Orpen asked Qing, the Bushman hunter, about
