136 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



I venture to assert that originally the comedy was a 

 winileod a choral dance at a sex-festival, a Mleih. 

 It denotes the ode of the /cw/^o?, but Greek /c&yto? 

 signifies a revel, a festal procession. We are told that 

 at these festivals, which took place on fixed days, the 

 party " paraded the streets, crowned, bearing torches, 

 singing, dancing, and playing all kinds of frolics," such 

 words stand almost as a translation of the Landregt 

 description of how the Friesian bride is to be brought 

 home. In the Alcestis of Euripides (11. 915 et seq.) the 

 KM/JUGS is directly associated with the bridal torches and 

 hymns. The /ewyito? songs were of a phallic or ribald char- 

 acter, and the name /cw^o? stands not only for the festival, 

 but for the band of revellers, 1 whether male or female 

 they are the chorus. But it is singular that a cognate 

 word KM/JUT} means village, and the relation is too strong to 

 be passed over. It becomes quite intelligible, however, if 

 we see in the primitive village ihehaia or home of the 

 kin-group, in the KW/JLOS the hive or band of kin at the 

 sex-festival, and in the comedy the hileih or song of the 

 hive. Even the root of KW^ is closely related to that 

 of home, and so to the Jit series. We may note /ce/eo and 

 , to lie, Koi/j,da), to lie down and also to still, and 

 , a lair, nest, couch, and especially the marriage bed. 

 Thus it will be seen that such a refined idea as that of 

 comedy carries us back to primitive civilisation with its 

 kin sex-festivals, and that hileih and comedy are of one 

 and the same origin. 2 



1 Compare the way in which o-v/jnr6<rioj> gets used of a feast, the party at the 

 feast, and the place at which the feast is held. 



3 As comedy, so tragedy comes down to us from the old mother-age worship. 

 The dancing round the Bock (rpdyos) at the harvest festival, the choral song of 

 men and women, the collection of money or food for a common meal, are features 



