n certain
cases the circumambulation is connected with the movement of the sun in
the sky--probably a later interpretation of the ceremony. Examples are
found in Hindu, Greek, and Roman practices, and in some modern Christian
usages (in the Greek and Roman churches). As a magical efficiency was
held to attach to the ceremony, its effect was sometimes held to depend
on the direction of the movement; if it was to the right--passing from
east through south to west (the worshiper facing the east)--it was good,
but bad if in the opposite direction. Though traces of solemn
circumambulation are found in some lower tribes, it has been, and is,
practiced chiefly in the higher cults.[233]

+113+. Sacred dances and processions are natural human expressions of
emotions that have been adopted by religious sentiment, and are often
supposed to have potency in themselves. They tend to disappear with the
progress of general refinement and of ethical conceptions of life and of
deity. They continue, however, far into the civilized period, in which
we find dramatic representations (as the Eleusinian rites and the
medieval Mystery Plays), processions of priests bearing or conducting
sacred objects, processions of devotees with music, and pilgrimages to
shrines. Such ceremonies, while they are regarded by educated persons
simply as expressions of reverence and accompaniments of prayer, are
still believed by many to have an innate or magic potency, insuring
prosperity to the participants.

DECORATIVE AND CURATIVE CEREMONIES

+114+. Love of ornament is found among all savage peoples; the value
they attach to beads and all colored things is well known to travelers
and traders. It has been plausibly argued that the origin of clothing is
to be found in the desire of each sex to make itself beautiful in the
eyes of the other.[234] However that may be, the employment of leaves
for headdresses and waistbands is general among lower tribes.[235]

+115+. Equally popular is the adornment of the body by colored marks
made with red ocher, pipe-clay, turmeric, charcoal, and such like things
as are furnished by nature. Elaborate designs, of straight and curved
lines, are traced on the skin, and these are gradually differentiated
and become marks of rank and function. The war paint of the American
Indians is governed by fixed rules, the object being to make the warrior
terrible to enemies.[236] Rings, quills, sticks, and stones, worn in
holes made in e