To the Greeks and to many primitive peoples the rites of birth, marriage, and death were for the most part family rites needing little or no social emphasis. But _the_ rite which concerned the whole tribe, the essence of which was entrance into the tribe, was the rite of initiation at puberty. This all-important fact is oddly and significantly enshrined in the Greek language. The general Greek word for rite was _tělětē_. It was applied to all mysteries, and sometimes to marriages and funerals. But it has nothing to do with death. It comes from a root meaning "to grow up." The word _tělětē_ means _rite of growing up_, becoming complete. It meant at first maturity, then rite of maturity, then by a natural extension any rite of initiation that was mysterious. The rites of puberty were in their essence mysterious, because they consisted in initiation into the sanctities of the tribe, the things which society sanctioned and protected, excluding the uninitiated, whether they were young boys, women, or members of other tribes. Then, by contagion, the mystery notion spread to other rites. * * * * * We understand now who and what was the god who arose out of the rite, the _dromenon_ of tribal initiation, the rite of the new, the second birth. He was Dionysos. His name, according to recent philology, tells us--Dio_nysos_, "Divine Young Man." When once we see that out of the emotion of the rite and the facts of the rite arises that remembrance and shadow of the rite, that _image_ which is the god, we realize instantly that the god of the spring rite _must_ be a young god, and in primitive societies, where young women are but of secondary account, he will necessarily be a young _man_. Where emotion centres round tribal initiation he will be a young man just initiated, what the Greeks called a _kouros_, or _ephebos_, a youth of quite different social status from a mere _pais_ or boy. Such a youth survives in our King of the May and Jack-in-the-Green. Old men and women are for death and winter, the young for life and spring, and most of all the young man or bear or bull or tree just come to maturity. And because life is one at the Spring Festival, the young man carries a blossoming branch bound with wool of the young sheep. At Athens in spring and autumn alike "they carry out the _Eiresione_, a branch of olive wound about with wool ... and laden with all sorts of firstfruits, _that scarcity may cease_, and they sing over it: "Eiresione brings Figs and fat cakes, And a pot of honey and oil to mix, And a wine-cup strong and deep, That she may drink and sleep." The Eiresione had another name that told its own tale. It was called _Korythalia_,[34] "Branch of blooming youth." The young men, says a Greek orator, are "the Spring of the people." * * * * *