The sacred mystery of the bull-roarer is no longer remembered by the Oraon, nor preserved in his folklore. It is now neither employed, as in Australia, to scare away women and children by its thunderous booming, nor is it employed, as among the Zuni Indians and certain South African tribes, as a call to the ceremonial observance of the tribal ritual. The function of scaring away women and children from an Oraon dhumkuria is partially performed by a wooden post in the interior of the hall facing the doorway. This post is in some dhümküria houses roughly carved into the similitude of a human female. Eveu where the post is not carved into a human shape, it is always provided with a slit meant to represent the female organ. (Fig. 4) In some dhumkurias one or more planks of wood with female breasts carved on them in relief are placed upon the beam which is supported on this post. Saucy children who dare intrude or peep into the dhumkuria building are visited for their impudence with the indecent punishment of having their private parts pressed against or inserted into the slit on the post. It is not unlikely, however, that this rudely carved post was once meant to represent the spirit or deity of fertility among men. Certain other practices connected with the dhümküriä institution would appear to strengthen this inference. At the present day, however, it is the corie. sponding symbol of the male phallus represented by a high conical mound of earth and rarely a high conical stone, known as Māndar-salu, as well as the hole (representing probably the female organ) underneath the Mutri-Chanḍi stone into which the dhumküriä boys ceremonially nieturate for increase of male progeny, that are connected with the fertility rites of the dhūmkūriâ young men. (Fig. 5.)

To return to the bull-roarer. If the bull-roarer is no longer used by the Oraon inmates of the bachelors' club to scare away women and children from its sacred and inviolable precincts, as among some Australian Blacks, it would seem that there is a certain Orãon practice still connected with these bullroarers which would appear to have been originally meant to

scare away evil spirits. The practice I refer to is that of taking out these threaded slats of bamboo which are nothing else but bull-roarers from the dhumkura house to the adjoining akhrā or dancing ground on occasions of certain dancing festivals of the Oraon youth and hanging them in long rows upon rows over the heads of the dancers. On inquiry as to the object of hanging these so-called khukris in long strings over the dancing ground, the Oraons of the village can only tell the inquisitive inquirer that they are meant for decoration (sōbhā) and for the rattling sound they make when shaken by the wind. But the anthropologist has good reasons to infer that the object of this exhibition of bull-roarers is a more serious and indeed a magical one. It is not an unusual phenomenon at these dances for one or more of the dancers-particularly young femalesto show signs of spirit possession. The Orãon believes that disembodied human spirits are always eager to take part in these dances and other merriments to which they were accustomed during their earthly existence, and this they can only do by entering the bodies of some dancer or other. But as such spirit-possession is harmful to the person possessed, it is necessary to keep off such spirits. And the sight of the bull-roarers and the sound made by them when shaken by the bre ze were prolably supposed to have the effect of scaring away spirits, just as the cracking of a whip by the spirit-doctor, the brandishing of sticks at the Oraon ceremony of driving away diseasc-spirits, and the brandishing of swords at Oraon weddings, are also supposed to scare away evil spirits. In the Banks Islands in Melanesia and in parts of North America, the bull-roarer is avowedly employed to frighten away spirits.

From all these circumstances and the association in which the instrument occurs, there appears to me to be no reasonable doubt that the bull-rearer among the Oraons was once held sacred as an object of religious or magical significance. The very fact that the Oraon, like the Australian Black to whom the bull-roarer is still an object of religious awe and ritual, still carefully treasures up this mysterious instrument in his

dhumkuria building which is taboo to women and children, raises a strong presumption of its former religious and magicoreligious use among the Orãons as among the Australians. This presumption is further strengthened by the fact that the only other objects that are so treasured up in the Oraon dhümkürias, namely, their jātra flags and the wooden representations of animals and other tribal emblems (Fig. 6) are still of magicoreligious significance to the tribe and to which offerings and sacrifices are still made. Finally, the presumption ripens almost into proof when we find that these bull-roarers are assigned a part, probably that of spirit-scaring, on occasions of dancing festivals of the Oraon youth of the dhumkūriās.

Such is the existing fragmentary evidence of the magicoreligious uses of this simple and seemingly insignificant instrument which, has been called the most ancient, widely spread and sacred religious symbol in the world. In the course of ethnological investigations in the Panjab among the Chuhrās, I came to know that until five or six years ago bull-roarers made of wood and known as Ghunknis were frequently used as toys by children in Panjab villages and even now they have not altogether gone out of use. In South India and in Bengal, too, bull-roarers are known to be used in places as children's toys. But unfortunately no specimens appear in any public collection, much less does any attempt appear to have been yet made to trace their past uses. I need hardly urge that it behoves all students of Indian Ethnology to search assiduously for any survivals or vestiges of the existence, and of the religious, magical and other uses, past and present, of the bull-roarer in different parts of India,

VI-Ancient Indian Historical Tradition

By Dr. A. Banerji-Sastri, M.A., Ph. D. (Oxon.)

"There is never more than his history behind the European which, of course, when it is great, rich and significant, gives him a relief which no other man possesses. But this background is always a finite one, and the clearest contours do not substitute width. At the back of the Oriental stand legends or fairy-tales: they represent more in so far as possibility is always more than reality; it is less, as they are susceptible of doubt. For this reason the Oriental seems always somehow unreal; he produces the effect of a quasimodogenitus who is simultaneously infinitely old.”1

"

An inadequate appreciation of this relation of history to legends has often misled European students of Indian history. History" writes Macdonell3, "is the one weak spot in Indian literature. It is, in fact, non-existent. The total lack of the historical sense is so characteristic that the whole course of Sanskrit literature is darkened by the shadow of this defect, suffering as it does from an entire absence of exact chronology." Keith and Pargiter follow with a list of omissions of so-called historical facts and ingenuous theories based thereon. The charges are thus principally two :-(a) non-statement of facts (b) want of chronology.8 But (a) no history, even

:

1 Keyserling. Reisetagebuch, Holroyd-Reece, vol. II, p. 69.

2 J.R.A.S., 1914, pp. 737-41.

• Macdonell, H.S.L., p. 11.

• J.R.A.S., op.cit., p. 738. Oldenberg, J.R.A.S., 1909, pp. 1095 f. 'J.R.4.8., 1913, pp. 885-904.

Pargiter, 4.1.H.T, pp. 9-13.

7 Ibid. p. 10; Vedic Index, ii. 256.

• Ved. Ind., i. 331.

European history, from the time of Herodotus and Thucydides to Carlyle and Treitschke ever records everything which lives. and exists; it only knows and records that portion which interferes immediately with material events coming within the purview of its selected subject. () And is not "exact chronology" in all histology (apart from the life-history of individuals a fiction to relieve one epoch by the succeeding one?1 Do not they continue to exist in and with another? Just as no state in the individual finally passes away but only disappears from the arena of activity, so historical conditions endure, although they temporarily retire from the popular view. Some social strata in India still live in medieval days, others continue Vedio sacrifices. There are still Asuras, Aryas and Dasas; Chaldeans, Phoenicians and Sumerians; only it is difficult to discover them'. The whole history of Sanskritic literature is filled by ghosts: Visvamitras, Vasisthas and Bharatas stalk on the stage at every step; nine Vikramadityas carry on the literary tradition from era to era. This funda. mental unity is reflected in chronological continuity that is at once vague and comprehensive. Is it not truer than the multiplicity of the modern man who thinks historically, his dissatisfaction, his enmity to his own world? In his efforts to be different from what he is, he forcibly fits himself into an intellectual structure by violence. His superstition of himself as a historical unit leads him to ignore that within himself which does not harmonise with his age. He thus does not read history but imagines it. An instance is the endeavour of present day India the heir of every thing which preceded it fand is still in it, standing out against the ampler back-ground

1 Herder, Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit.

Cf this continuity from Pre-Vedic to Post-Vedic-Rv. 1. 164. 50: 'The gods sacrificed to a sacrifice by means of a sacrifice. Those were the first religious rites. Invested with glory, they then went to heaven where those gods who had preceded them (Pürve) dwell.'

Culturally and ethnically it is still more difficult to distinguish them.

♦ Pargiter, 4. I. H. T., chs. xii-xiv.

Penzler, The Ocean of Stories.