from sheer habit the pantomime went on. Probably some of the less
educated among them thought there "might be something in it," and anyhow
it was "as well to be on the safe side." The queer ceremony had got
associated with the worship of Olympian Zeus, and with him you must
reckon. Then perhaps your brother-in-law was the Ox-striker, and anyhow
it was desirable that the women should go; some of the well-born girls
had to act as water-carriers.

The Ox-murder was obsolete at Athens, but the spirit of the rite is
alive to-day among the Ainos in the remote island of Saghalien. Among
the Ainos the Bear is what psychologists rather oddly call the main
"food focus," the chief "value centre." And well he may be. Bear's flesh
is the Ainos' staple food; they eat it both fresh and salted; bearskins
are their principal clothing; part of their taxes are paid in bear's
fat. The Aino men spend the autumn, winter and spring in hunting the
Bear. Yet we are told the Ainos "worship the Bear"; they apply to it the
name _Kamui_, which has been translated god; but it is a word applied to
all strangers, and so only means what catches attention, and hence is
formidable. In the religion of the Ainos "the Bear plays a chief part,"
says one writer. The Bear "receives idolatrous veneration," says
another. They "worship it after their fashion," says a third. Have we
another case of "the heathen in his blindness"? Only here he "bows down"
not to "gods of wood and stone," but to a live thing, uncouth, shambling
but gracious--a Bear.

Instead of theorizing as to what the Aino thinks and imagines, let us
observe his _doings_, his _dromena_, his rites; and most of all his
great spring and autumn rite, the _dromenon_ of the Bear. We shall find
that, detail for detail, it strangely resembles the Greek _dromenon_ of
the Bull.