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This is best shown by the rites of tribal initiation, which seem normally to have formed part of the spring Drômena or sacred performances. The Kouroi, as we have said, are the initiated young men. They pass through their initiation; they become no longer παῖδες, boys, but ἄνδρες, men. The actual name Kouros is possibly connected with κείρειν, to shave,ssss1 and may mean that after this ceremony they first cut their long hair. Till then the κοῦρος is ἀκερσεκόμης—with hair unshorn. They have now open to them the two roads that belong to ἄνδρες alone: they have the work of begetting children for the tribe, and the work of killing the tribe's enemies in battle.

The classification of people according to their age is apt to be sharp and vivid in primitive communities. We, for example, think of an old man as a kind of man, and an old woman as a kind of woman; but in primitive peoples as soon as a man and woman cease to be able to perform his and her due tribal functions they cease to be men and women, ἄνδρες and γυναῖκες: the ex-man becomes a γέρων; the ex-woman a γραῦς.ssss1 We distinguish between 'boy' and 'man', between 'girl' and 'woman'; but apart from the various words for baby, Attic Greek would have four sharp divisions, παῖς, ἔφηβος, ἀνήρ, γέρων.ssss1 In Sparta the divisions are still sharper and more numerous, centring in the great initiation ceremonies of the Iranes, or full-grown youths, to the goddess called Orthia or Bortheia.ssss1 These initiation ceremonies are called Teletai, 'completions': they mark the great 'rite of transition' from the immature, charming, but half useless thing which we call boy or girl, to the τέλειος ἀνήρ, the full member of the tribe as fighter or counsellor, or to the τελεία γυνή, the full wife and mother. This whole subject of Greek initiation ceremonies calls pressingly for more investigation. It is only in the last few years that we have obtained the material for understanding them, and the whole mass of the evidence needs re-treatment. For one instance, it is clear that a great number of rites which were formerly explained as remnants of human sacrifice are simply ceremonies of initiation.ssss1