And this, to make a mere guess, may have been its earliest use, if utilitarian contrivances can generally claim historical precedence, as is by no means certain.

As long as man hunted with very inferior weapons, he must have depended a good deal on drives, that either forced the game into a pitfall, or rounded them up so as to enable a concerted attack to be made by the human pack.

No wonder that the bull-roarer is sometimes used to bring luck in a mystic way to hunters.

More commonly, however, at the present day, the bull-roarer serves another type of mystic purpose, its noise, which is so suggestive of thunder or wind, with a superadded touch of weirdness and general mystery, fitting it to play a leading part in rain-making ceremonies.

From these not improbably have developed all sorts of other ceremonies connected with making vegetation and the crops grow, and with making the boys grow into men, as is done at the initiation rites.