marriages, or out of economy, that a curtain ring, taken from the church curtain, has been used.
Memory
rings, of threads wound around the finger, have often been employed.
Sometimes these are made of cord or yarn, and each ring is supposed to
represent one object to be remembered, and to be purchased, or
delivered at the final place of destination. The writer distinctly
remembers seeing an old man nearly 90 years of age, wearing a waistcoat
older than himself, and with at least twenty strings of different
colors and variety on his fingers. He trudged a distance of six miles
to the nearest village and had been instructed not to return until he
had purchased or obtained the object meant by each string. This
memorizing by cords or strands has been practised by many primitive
peoples who had not developed any system of writing, a well-known
instance being the wampum records of some of our North American Indian
tribes.
To
the famous episode of the descent of the life-goddess Ishtar to the
infernal regions, forming part of the great Babylonian poem known as
the " Gilgamesh Epic," have been appended a few lines suggesting an
idea distantly resembling that in the Greek myth of Orpheus and
Eurydice. A mourner who seeks to release a loved one from the Realm of
Death, is told to address himself to Tammuz (=Adonis ). A festival
garment is to be put on the god's statue to induce him " to play on
the flute of lapis-lazuli," with a ring of porphyry. This divine music
was believed to arouse the dead and call them to inhale the fragrance
of the incense offering prepared for them.40 The " porphyry ring " for play-
40 Morris Jastrow, Jr., " The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria," Philadelphia and London, 1915, pp. 459, 460.
