Beatty—The St. George, or Mummers', Plays. 323 
the various parts. But, as I have said, the Sit, Geoqga plays bring 
up the whole question of the drama. If the intent of all these 
ceremonies is the bringing about of a desired result by means 
of mimetic action, or mimetic magic, we may perhaps see what 
was in Aristotle’s mind when he made the statement that po¬ 
etry arose from the instinct of imitation, and from the instinct 
for harmony and rhythm. 1 Is it not probable that Aristotle 
had here in mind initiative or mimetic ceremony? Curtins 
attempts to connect the verb i through Wos with the 
Sanskrit ma-ya, phantom\, or juggling. This connection is 
frowned upon by Leo Meyer, but it is most interesting and is 
highly probable from the evidence of folk-lore. Such a con¬ 
nection would exactly correspond with the known facts of sav¬ 
age and peasant life, and it is certain that the Bacchanalian 
and other Greek festivals were in part mimetic in the magic 
sense. 2 
In nearly all the savage ceremonies we see a very close con¬ 
nection between ceremony and myth, and there seems to be lit¬ 
tle doubt that the ceremony is not the derived form. In other 
words, the myth or legend is a late invention to 1 explain the 
ceremony. In all cases where both survive, the ceremony has 
all the marks of being the original. 3 Thus the legends, epics 
and ritual songs have as their ancestor the pantomimic cere¬ 
mony, and therefore we are not making an impossible or even 
1 “Poetics,” iv, 2-6. 
2 On the origin of Drama, and its mimetic character, see Wundt* 
“ VolKerpsychologie ,” vol. 2, chap. 1, pp. 463-526 (“Mimus und Drama”). 
3 See W. Robertson Smith, “Religion of the Semites,” sect. 1; Wash- 
ington Matthews, “Navaho Legends,” Introduction. Stevenson, 11. ce, 
Matthews expresses the general facts excellently, 1. c., p. 52: 
“Whenever an opportunity has occurred of studying a rite with its 
associated myth, it has been found that the myth never explains all 
the symbolism of the rite, although it may account for all the more 
important acts. A primitive and underlying symbolism, which proli- 
ably existed previous to the establishment of the rite, remains unex¬ 
plained by the myth, as though its existence were taken as a matter 
of course and required no explanation. Some explanation of this 
foundation symbolism may be found in the Origin Legend, or in other 
early legends of the tribe; but something remains which even these d© 
not explain.” 
