208 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 



working in the bush I was often entertained with vivid 

 accounts of the Bunyip, that imaginary dreadful animal 

 which, as I was told, is at least as big as a horse, and is 

 often to be heard roaring at midnight in deep water-holes 

 or rivers. Although I was then young, and had not any 

 conception of anthropology or, indeed, of psychology as 

 more than words, I was much struck by the fact that a 

 large number of uneducated white men were easily led 

 to believe in the existence of this creature. They were 

 highly superstitious, and superstition is the imperfect 

 functioning of ancient organic belief. If then even death 

 is not natural to the mind of primitive man, and if he 

 attributed self-acting malignancy to natural agents, it 

 seems perfectly obvious that drowning was to him the 

 result of a deliberate act on the part of evil water, and 

 later, of that water's malignant spirit. No one will need 

 to be reminded of the legend of the Lorelei, which is but 

 a romantic survival of the early beliefs of man connected 

 with streams and water. Even at the present day, in 

 many of the rivers of Germany, to bathe at a particular 

 time during St. John's Day at midsummer is an exception- 

 ally rash and dangerous proceeding. These beliefs are 

 found along the Necker and the Saale. St. John himself 

 has really become a river god, or has taken the place of 

 one and is, as Frazer tells us, especially greedy at Cologne, 

 where he requires fourteen victims, seven of whom must 

 be drowned in the river, and seven more who must break 

 their necks by climbing. This second sacrifice shows 

 that St. John has also replaced a tree spirit. 



We should entirely misconceive the evolution of 

 ancient thought if we considered all this was nothing 

 but a result of the romantic imagination. It is hardly 

 going too far to say that there is nothing romantic, 



