[278.2] Ploss, i. 307, 308. Puberty ceremonies to which girls are subjected are by no means confined to “initiation-mysteries”--that is to say, collective rites performed on a number of candidates at the same time. Several of the above-cited ceremonies are performed on individual girls as they reach puberty; and examples might very easily be multiplied. In Cyprus, on the other hand, there seem to have been collective rites, with the sacrifice of virginity. [280.1] Mannhardt, _Wald- und Feldkulte_, ii. 284; Frazer, _Adonis_, 32 note. [281.1] _Rev. Hist. Rel._, xli. 315. [282.1] Farnell, _Cults_, v. 423. [283.1] We are reminded of the risk incurred in relieving Kamtchadal widows of their “sins” (_supra_, p. 223). There, however, the Russian soldiers who assisted them belonged to a totally different mental and social environment. They contemned the native superstition. It is improbable that any strangers at Babylon or Heliopolis could have been on a plane of civilization so far removed from that of the natives that they were either ignorant of, or indifferent to, the native ideas. Rather, they are likely to have shared them. Among the Baronga, when a similar service is required to be rendered, the man must be inveigled by a trick: he would not knowingly incur the risk (Junod, _R. E. S._, i. 163). [283.2] Garcilasso, i. 59. [284.1] Ploss, i. 406; Hertz, _loc. cit._, citing authorities. [284.2] Crawley, _Mystic Rose_ (1902), 348. [285.1] Westermarck, _Moral Ideas_, ii. 445. [285.2] Above, p. 63. [286.1] Van Gennep, _Rites_, 39 _sqq._ As to trials of strength, see _Jesup Exped._, vii. 582. [287.1] Dennett, 121. [287.2] Dumoutier, 182. [288.1] Since this essay was published in its original form the whole position of women in the temple-ritual of Western Asia has been carefully discussed by Dr Farnell (_Greece and Bab._, 268 _sqq._), to whose criticisms I have been greatly indebted during the process of revision. [289.1] Among many savages additional prohibited degrees exist side by side with exogamy strictly so called. In my view these, where they exist, are supplementary rules of subsequent growth. In any case exogamy operates in the same way as our prohibited degrees. [292.1] O’Grady, ii. 264. [292.2] There are other manuscripts of the Colloquy, but none of them contain the sequel of the adventures of the _Lia Fáil_. See the preface to Stokes’ edition, _Irische Texte_, 4th ser. (Leipzig, 1900). [293.1] Skene’s paper is in _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, viii. 68; Mr O’Reilly’s in _Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland_, xxxii. 77. The stone now called the _Lia Fáil_ at Tara is clearly not the stone of tradition.