Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

in] Sanctity is j^e-theological 63
The cardinal question remains, what do we mean by the word
sacred 1 ?
In bygone days the answer would have been prompt and
simple, the thunderbolt is sacred because it belonged to a god.
The god is presupposed and from him comes the sanctity. We
now know, from a study of the customs and representations of
primitive peoples, that, broadly speaking, the reverse is true, a
thing is regarded as sacred, and out of that sanctity, given certain
conditions, emerges a daimon and ultimately a god. Le sacre,
c'est le pere du dieu. This comes out very clearly in the attitude
of the Wiradthuri towards the Bull-Roarer.
Before initiation no boy may behold a Bull-Roarer. He and
the women hear from a distance the awful unearthly whirring
sound. At the moment of initiation the novices are closely
covered with blankets and the fearsome din breaks upon them in
complete darkness. The roaring, boys and women are told,
represents the muttering of thunder, and the thunder—this is the
important point—is the voice of Dhuramoolan. 'Thunder,' said
Umbara headman of the Yuin tribe 2 , 'is the voice of Him (and
he pointed upwards to the sky) calling on the rain to fall and
everything to grow up new.'
Now here we have the Bull-Roarer explained, for the edifica-
tion of the women and children, as a more or less anthropomorphic
being, a kind of Sky-God ; but note this important point. When
the bo} r is actually initiated the central mystery takes the form of
a revelation {airoK(i\vy\n