The boy who gave me this says he got the idea from his father, who is a coastguard; his father once tied a string to a piece of wood lying near the fireside, and began to twirl it round for the children's amusement, saying, 'That's what I have seen niggers do in the West Indies.'

This last remark is very suggestive. The form is not like that which I have collected in England, and certainly does more resemble the Oro-stick of West Africa (Fig. 39). It would be a strange circumstance-but not more strange than others that we have already studied-if the dreaded god of vengeance of West Africa should become the plaything of a boy in the north of Ireland.'

Dr. Schmeltz, the Director of the Ethnographical Museum at Leiden, has written a laborious monograph on the bullroarer. He commences by describing a child's toy well known in Germany as the Waldteufel. It is a small cardboard cylinder, open at one end and closed at the other; to the middle of the drum is fastened a horsehair, the other end of which is tied to a piece of wood. When the implement is swung round it makes a horrible sound. I have a perfectly similar toy that was bought in the streets of Cambridge, except that a piece of fibre replaces the horsehair; this has a loop at the unattached end, which revolves loosely in a notch at the end of a short piece of wood. The wood at this spot is coated with resin, so as to produce a grating sound; this is conducted along the fibre, and the cylinder acts as a resonator. I have been unable to discover the English name for the "Devil of the woods."

My friend,

'Since the above was in type I have been informed that "boomers" are in common use among boys in County Down. They are notched in various ways, sometimes on one side only; they appear, in fact, to be of very diverse form. Those given to me were made for me, and may not represent the common form of bull-roarer in the north-east corner of Ireland. My informant stated that once when, as a boy, he was playing with a "boomer" an old country woman said it was a "sacred" thing. It would be worth while to follow up this clue.

Director Schmeltz, suggests a connection between this toy and the bull-roarer. I quite fail to see how the simple slat of wood could develop into the more complicated cylinder. All one can say is that they both make a disagreeable sound. As to the origin and significance of the Waldteufel, nothing whatever is known, and we have no evidence before us to connect this toy with any magical or religious rite.'

An analogous implement to the bull-roarer is that which is called in America the "buzz." It usually consists of a small, flat, rectangular piece of wood, in which two holes are pierced, and through these a long, continuous piece of string is passed. The loops of the string are held in the two hands, and the wood is swung round so as to twist the string. The hands are strongly and steadily drawn apart, which causes the wood to revolve at a rapid rate, and to produce a buzzing sound; if properly managed the momentum is so great that the string twists itself up again, and so on indefinitely.

Culin informs us that there are two kinds in Korea. The first is a simple circular card with two holes through which the cords are passed; the other is a more complicated arrangement. The first form occurs in China and Japan. Murdoch describes and figures one from the Point Barrow Eskimo,' and Culin says the "buzz" is to be found widely distributed among the Indians of North America.

It is an occasional plaything in England, but I do not know its history. Mr. Thomas Drew informs me that on a summer's evening fifty years ago the young weavers of Belfast were fond of playing with the "bummer." It was an oblong piece of wood, pierced with two holes, and serrated all round.

'J. D. E. Schmeltz, "Das Schwirrholz," Verh. des Vereins für naturw. Unterhaltung zu Hamburg, ix., 1896, p. 92. 2 Korean Games, p. 22.

3 Ninth Annual Rep. Bureau of Ethnol., p. 378.

This toy has not yet been connected with any ceremonial

usage.

A German friend has informed me that he has seen the bull-roarer in the Black Forest, where it is known as Schlägel ; and I have also heard that it is sometimes seen in fairs at Basel in Switzerland. Tylor (Academy, April 9, 1881, p. 265) says it is called Brummer in Germany. In West Prussia, near Marienwerder, the true bull-roarer (Schwirrholz) has been noted by Siedel.' A narrow piece of light wood, a span in length, was fastened to a whip; the whirling of the whips was called burren, and not every boy could do this equally well; the success depended also partly on the length and weight of the bull-roarer, as well as on the nature of the whip. The little piece of wood had to be cut and smoothed with care before it would work properly. After a lapse of thirty years, Siedel has forgotten how he fastened the wood on to the whip, and also certain other details. The game was known in the neighbourhood generally. About the years 1869 and 1870 a number of the pure Germans of this district emigrated to America, and their place has been partly taken by Poles, and it would be interesting to find out whether the Polish children have adopted this toy, or whether it is restricted to the Germans.

The distribution of the bull-roarer in Europe is carried a step farther by Figura,' who states that it not only occurs in Poland but in and beyond the Carpathians. He was born on the banks of the San in Galicia, which separates the Ruter and the Poles, and the bull-roarer is used on both sides of the river. He says:

"As a child of agricultural parents, I often returned in the evening to the village on horseback, driving the cattle home.

1 H. Siedel, "Das Schwirrholz in Westpreussen," Globus, 1896, p. 67. ន F. Figura," Das Schwirrholz in Galizien," Ibid., p. 226.

Not always, but often, at such times the bull-roarer is used by the young herdsmen when in good humour. The bull-roarer is a longish, thin piece of wood, notched at one end on both sides, and fastened with a simple knot at the end of a whip. At the beginning of the revolutions the bull-roarer produces a note corresponding to the letters b-s (greatly protracted). By swinging some time and more quickly the high note passes into a low organ note. This tuning effect is called in Galicia, among both Poles and Ruthenians, bzik. The wooden object itself has no name. This buzzing or humming noise excites pasturing cattle. As soon as the bull-roarers are started the calves stretch out their tails into the air, and kick out their hind legs, sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left, as if they were dancing. After some minutes the old cattle follow the young ones, and there is a general stampede to the village. Therefore one says in Galicia that a man whose brain is not quite right has a bzik.' It is supposed that the animals get into an idiotic condition owing to the buzzing of the bull-roarer.

"In what a curious way an idea may change may be seen from the following. It is well known that in the year 1831 thousands of young Poles emigrated to foreign parts, especially to France, and there a great number enlisted in the Algerian foreign legion. The Poles used to play cards, and their game was called bzik. The Frenchmen got to like the game; they could pronounce the word, but in writing it down according to French orthography it became bezique! Thus this favourite game of the French gaming clubs owes its name to the bull-roarer."

In one of his charming and suggestive essays Andrew Lang' first drew attention to the fact that the bull-roarer was employed in ancient Greece in connection with the Dionysiac Mysteries.

"Clemens of Alexandria, and Arnobius, an early Christian 'Andrew Lang, "The Bull-Roarer: A Study of the Mysteries," Custom and Myth, 2nd edition, 1885, p. 39.

father who follows Clemens, describe certain toys of the child Dionysus which were used in the mysteries. Among these are turbines, κώνοι and ῥόμβοι. The ordinary dictionaries interpret all these as whipping-tops, adding that pouẞos is sometimes a magic wheel.' The ancient scholiast on Clemens, however, writes: The novos 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.' "In the part of the Dionysiac mysteries at which the toys of the child Dionysus were exhibited, and during which (as it seems) the 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, Æschines. The mother of Æschines, he says, was a kind of 'wise woman,' and dabbler in mysteries. Æschines used to aid her by bedaubing the initiate over with clay and bran. The word 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.

"In Lucian's Treatise on Dancing 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." 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. 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. 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

1 Cape Monthly Magazine, July, 1874.