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In its tales and myths it may preserve the memory of a stage of morality which the adult community has outgrown, and has left behind as far it has left behind the bull-roarer or the bow and arrow. And the stage of morality, of which it preserves the memory, is one from which the adult community in past time emerged.
I was very anxious to procure a "bull-roarer," and made my man ask for one, to the intense surprise of the others; how could I have known of the existence of these secret and sacred utensils?
From this it seems to follow that the being who swallows and disgorges the novices at initiation is believed to be a powerful ghost or ancestral spirit, and that the bull-roarer, which bears his name, is his material representative. That would explain the jealous secrecy with which the sacred implement is kept from the sight of women.
Frank Cushing's 'Adventures in Zuni. 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.
Besides, it was a change from the trees with their wild-tangled vines and their snake-like lianas. So we decided on the temple. "That night I was a long time getting to sleep. The memory of the old hag and the bull-roarer was in my mind. I kept thinking of Ista, too. It was a warmer night than usual, and, after the moon dropped, pitchy dark.
One must be able to endure pain, like the Red Indian braves; to go long periods fasting and without food or drink, like the choupan among the Western Inoits who, wanders for whole nights over the ice-fields under the moon, scantily clothed and braving the intense cold; to overcome the very fear of death and danger, like the Australian novices who, at first terrified by the sound of the bull-roarer and threats of fire and the knife, learn finally to cast their fears away.
While he is out in the bush recovering from his wounds, he must swing the bull-roarer, or a being who lives up in the sky will swoop down and carry him off.
In a very interesting lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, Mr. Tylor once exhibited a bull-roarer. At first it did nothing particular when it was whirled round, and the audience began to fear that the experiment was like those chemical ones often exhibited at institutes in the country, which contribute at most a disagreeable odour to the education of the populace.
It is barely possible that this may have been a whizzer or bull-roarer, such as are used at the present day to imitate the wind, and commonly carried by the performer in a public dance who personifies the warrior. The best preserved of all the pahos from the Sikyatki graves are represented in u and v, both of which were found in the same mortuary bowl.
There are thus undeniably close resemblances between the Greek mysteries and those of the lowest contemporary races. As to the bull-roarer, its recurrence among Greeks, Zunis, Kamilaroi, Maoris, and South African races, would be regarded, by some students, as a proof that all these tribes had a common origin, or had borrowed the instrument from each other. But this theory is quite unnecessary.
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