Amid the riotous plaudits of the crowd the actors then retire with a profusion of bows and capers.
All savage races are familiar with the use of horrifying masks to heighten the effects of religious rites. The fetish worshippers of Africa regard them as an indispensable accessory to the due performance of the ceremonies, and every traveller has seen the performers in ritual dances adorned with their grotesque headgear.
Sometimes the masks have special characteristics to connote the racial peculiarities of those who wear them. The Moï masks, for example, are remarkable for their long flowing hair and it may well be because this people believe that their ancestors were a hairy race.
It is quite usual for the masks to commemorate some ethnical peculiarity which distinguishes the group.
In Egypt the King usually adorned himself with a mask of the animal-god from whom he claimed descent.
The visitor to the Trocadero in Paris will see statues of the Kings of Dahomey represented as sharks, their bodies covered with scales. The British Museum contains a number of bronze reliefs whereon the King of Benin appears as half shark and half man.
In short, in countries savage or civilized, masked dances are nothing but crude attempts to dramatize popular myths, and accordingly the actors play the rôles either of animals or the legendary heroes with whom they battled.
CHAPTER X
INTELLECTUAL LIFE
The relations between the development of language and social evolution—An enigmatic system of writing—Knotted cords, knotches in sticks, and their accessories—The evolution of literature among primitive races—Length of memory among races that have no written records—Historical value of legends transmitted by oral tradition—Nature of the more usual alterations to be met with in documentary folklore—The most general legends, fables and proverbs of the Moï.