women, adds that they acquired a dowry in that manner; an inscription at Tralles (_Bull. corr. hell._, VII, 1885, p. 276) actually mentions a descendant of a sacred prostitute ([Greek: ek progonon pallakidon]) who had temporarily filled the same office ([Greek: pallakeusasa kata chresmon Dii]). Even at Thebes in Egypt there existed a similar custom with striking local peculiarities in the time of Strabo (XVII, 1, Sec. 46), and traces of it seem to have been found in Greece among the Locrians (Vurtheim, _De Aiacis origine_, Leyden, 1907). Every Algerian traveler knows how the girls of the Ouled-Nail earn their dowry in the _ksours_ and the cities, before they go back to their tribes to marry, and Doutte (_Notes sur l'Islam maghrebien, les Marabouts_, Extr. _Rev. hist. des relig._, XL-XLI, Paris, 1900), has connected these usages with the old Semitic prostitution, but his thesis has been attacked and the historical circumstances of the arrival of the Ouled-Nail in Algeria in the eleventh century render it very doubtful (Note by Basset).--It seems certain (I do not know whether this explanation has ever been offered) {248} that this strange practice is a modified utilitarian form of an ancient exogamy. Besides it had certain favorable results, since it protected the girl against the brutality of her kindred until she was of marriageable age, and this fact must have insured its persistence; but the idea that inspired it at first was different. "La premiere union sexuelle impliquant une effusion de sang, a ete interdite, lorsque ce sang etait celui d'une fille du clan verse par le fait d'un homme du clan" (Salomon Reinach, _Mythes, cultes_, I, 1905, p. 79. Cf. Lang, _The Secret of the Totem_, London, 1905.) Thence rose the obligation on virgins to yield to a stranger first. Only then were they permitted to marry a man of their own race. Furthermore, various means were resorted to in order to save the husband from the defilement which might result from that act (see for inst., Reinach, _Mythes, cultes_, I, p. 118).--The opinion expressed in this note was attacked, almost immediately after its publication, by Frazer (_Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, 1907, pp. 50 ff.) who preferred to see in the sacred prostitutions a relic of primitive communism. But at least one of the arguments which he uses against our views is incorrect. Not the women, but the men, received presents in Acilisena (Strabo, _loc. cit._) and the communistic theory does not seem to account for the details of the custom prevailing in the temple of Thebes. There the horror of blood clearly appears. On the discovery of a skull (having served at a rite of consecration) in the temple of the Janiculum, see the article cited above, "Dea Syria," in _Dict. des antiquites_. 42. Porphyry, _De Abstin._, II, 56; Tertull., _Apol._, 9. Cf. Lagrange, _op. cit._, p. 445.