THE STORIES 23 



Samoan tale a snipe is fecundated in this manner, and 

 bears a daughter. 1 



Stories of conception by bathing have been seriously 

 believed alike in the Old and New worlds. A Zulu 

 saga represents a king's daughters as bathing in a pool 

 in the river. The youngest, a mere child, comes out 

 with breasts swollen as large as a woman's. By the 

 counsel of the old men she is driven away. After 

 wandering from place to place she gives birth to a boy 

 who grows up a wise doctor. From what is said of 

 his beneficent deeds it has been conjectured that we 

 have here a corrupted account of Our Lord's birth, 

 derived possibly from the Portuguese. 2 There is how- 

 ever no evidence to support this improbable suggestion : 

 the story in all its details is purely native. The 

 Black Kirghiz of Central Asia asserted that their great 

 foremother was a princess who became pregnant by 

 bathing in a foam-covered lake. 3 Some of the 

 Algonkins traced the lineage of mankind from two 

 young squaws who swimming in the sea were im- 

 pregnated by the foam and produced a boy and girl. 4 

 Virtually the same incident appears not infrequently in 

 North American tradition. The Yurupari of South 

 America relate a story of some women who were for- 

 bidden by an old wizard to bathe in a certain holy 

 pool. They disobey and are fertilised by his semen 

 which is mingled with the water. 6 The same incident 

 was part of the religious belief of the ancient Persians. 

 Three drops of the seed of Zoroaster, we are told in 



1 Int. Arch. xvi. 90. 2 Callaway, Tales^ 335. 



* De Charencey, 184, citing Girard de Rialle, Memoire sur PAsie 

 Centrale. 



* Featherman, Aoneo-Mar. 80. * Ehrenreich, 47. 



