, writes: 'The ~konos~ 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.'[23] Here, in short, we have a brief but
complete description of the bull-roarer of the Australian _turndun_.
No single point is omitted. The ~konos~, like the _turndun_, is a
small object of wood, it is tied to a string, when whirled round it
produces a roaring noise, and it is used at initiations. This is not
the end of the matter.

In the part of the Dionysiac mysteries at which the toys of the child
Dionysus were exhibited, and during which (as it seems) the ~konos~,
or 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, AEschines. The mother of AEschines, he
says, was a kind of 'wise woman,' and dabbler in mysteries. AEschines
used to aid her by bedaubing the initiate over with clay and bran.[24]
The word ~hapomatton~, 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. Precisely the same trick
prevails in the mysteries of savage peoples. Mr. Winwood Reade[25]
reports the evidence of Mongilomba. When initiated, Mongilomba was
'severely flogged in the Fetich House' (as young Spartans were flogged
before the animated image of Artemis), and then he was 'plastered over
with goat-dung.' Among the natives of Victoria,[26] the 'body of the
initiated is bedaubed with clay, mud, charcoal powder, and filth of
every kind.' The girls are plastered with charcoal powder and white
clay, answering to the Greek gypsum. Similar daubings were performed
at the mysteries by the Mandans, as described by Catlin: and the Zunis
made raids on Mr. Cushing's black paint and Chinese ink for like
purposes. On the Congo, Mr. Johnson found precisely the same ritual in
the initiations. Here, then, not to multiply examples, we discover
two singular features in common between Greek and savage mysteries.
Both Greeks and savages employ the bull-roarer, both bedaub the
initiated with dirt or with white paint or ch