101). The dances of the _Salii_ may be appropriately mentioned here. Their sacred processions took place in March and October, and continued for over three weeks[273]. Headed by trumpeters and dressed in full battle apparel they marched through the city; at all the altars and temples they halted, and, under the conduct of two leaders, solemnly danced the war-dance in three measures in honour of Mars, singing at the same time[274]. The _Salii_, however, also performed dances in honour of Saturn, the Roman god of sowing; “as the Romans,” says Frazer, “sowed the corn both in spring and autumn, and as down to the present time in Europe superstitious rustics are wont to dance and leap high in the spring for the purpose of making the crops grow high, we may conjecture that the leaps and dancing performed by the _Salii_, the priests of the old Italian god of vegetation, were similarly supposed to quicken the growth of the corn by homoeopathic or imitative magic[275].” It was not in Rome alone that this type of dancing was performed; similar colleges of dancing priests are known to have existed in many towns of ancient Italy, and everywhere, we may conjecture, they were supposed to contribute to the fertility of the earth by their leaps and dances[276]. This magical purpose of the sacred dance will come before us again. VI A few examples of this type of the sacred dance among uncultured peoples may now be given[277]. The sowing festival among the Kayans of Central Borneo, who are essentially an agricultural people and of a primitive type, is very elaborate; but we are only concerned with that part of it at which the sacred dancing takes place. The following is taken from an eye-witness’ account: The first to appear on the scene were some men wearing wooden masks and helmets and so thickly wrapt in banana leaves that they looked like moving masses of green foliage. They danced silently, keeping time to the beat of the gongs. They were followed by other figures, some of whom executed war-dances; but the weight of their leafy envelope was such that they soon grew tired, and though they leaped high, they uttered none of the wild war-whoops which usually accompany these martial exercises. When darkness fell the dances ceased and were replaced by a little drama representing a boar brought to bay by a pack of hounds.... Later in the evening eight disguised girls danced, one behind the other, with slow steps and waving arms, to the glimmering light of torches and the strains of a sort of jew’s harp[278].