16 JOHN PHASER, B.A., LL.D. 



brand of Typlion upon him, exposed to all evil influences, 

 to disease and death from'animals, men, and spirits; but after 

 lie has made the acquaintance of his fathers' gods, and has 

 learned the sacred songs and dances of his tribe, he comes 

 forth another man ; he washes away the badge of darkness 

 and evil, and assumes the livery of the children of light. 

 The other men, whose mottled colour is a confession of 

 mingled good and evil in their lives, also emerge new men 

 once more, purified and devoted anew to the service of the 

 good, and freed from the power of the evil. 



This felt subjection to unseen evil and aspiration for deli- 

 verance from it in the minds of our native races, is not only 

 natural to man everywhere, but was a marked feature in the 

 whole system of Akkadian magic ; for these old Chaldasans 

 believed that innumerable spirits, each with a personality, 

 were distributed throughout nature, sometimes in union with 

 animate objects, sometimes separately. Existing everywhere, 

 they had each both an evil and a good aspect, at one time 

 favourable, at another unfavourable, controlling both life and 

 death, regulating all the phenomena, beneficial or destruc- 

 tive, of air, earth, fire, or water. A dual spirit, bad and good, 

 was attached to each of the celestial bodies, and each living 

 being; a constant warfare existed and was keenly maintained 

 between the bad and the good, and, according as the one 

 principle or the other held sway, so did blessings or disasters 

 descend upon nature and upon man. Hence the value of 

 religious rites, such as the Bora; for the due observance of 

 these, repeated from time to time, gave for a while, at least, 

 the victory to the good spirits, and brought blessings to the 

 faithful. Thus, then, I explain the red colour of the novice at 

 the Bora ; the red and white of the celebrants, and the white 

 colour of the whole when the service was completed. 



(D.) Ridley says that the Bora is Baiamai's ground. He 

 adds : " Baiamai sees all ; he knows all, if not directly, yet 

 through Turramulan, a subordinate deity. Turramulan is 

 mediator for all the operations of Baiamai to man, and from man 

 to Baiamai." " Women must not see Turramulan on pain of 

 death. And even when mention is made of Turramulan, or of 

 the Bora at which he presides, the women slink away, know- 

 ing that it is unlawful for them so much as to hear anything 

 about such matters." 



(d.) We have seen that in some places an image of 

 Daramulun is set up at the Bora. In another place, the 

 bull-roaring instrument, whose voice begins the ceremony of 

 the Bora and warns the women not to look, is called tirricoty, 

 and is sometimes made in the shape of a fish; the magic 



