Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/338

30 the world is believed to have had its origin in water. Moreover, the threemost important food-animals of the continent, the deer, buffalo and bear, are supposed to have had their origin in lakes or rivers. There is no evidence, however, that the origin of man was ever connected with water. He is always represented as coming from his mother's womb which, in so far as it receives symbolic representation, is regarded as a room.

In my survey of the rites of the world with the object of discovering examples of the symbolisation of rebirth by means of water I have so far omitted Europe. Since it is the dreams and childish phantasies of inhabitants of this continent which have led the psycho-analytic school to the belief in this mode of symbolism, and since it is the comparative study of one of the traditional tales of Europe and Asia from which the support of mythology has been evoked, it is necessary to inquire whether the religious ritual of Europe provides a motive for the prominence of water in connection with the phantasies of children concerning their mode of coming into the world. We shall not have far to look for a rite which may have acted as the source of these phantasies. The rite of baptism is not only one in which water and rebirth are intimately connected, but it is a rite so prominent in our lives and our traditions that it may well have acted as the source of the frequency of this association in the early experience of childhood. The baptismal rite of Christianity, and especially that variety in which complete immersion is practised, must impress the imagination of every child, not merely of every Christian child, but of the child of any other creed or church who is brought up surrounded by Christians. I do not say that the symbolisation of rebirth by means of water is necessarily a result of the prominence of baptism, but baptism holds so important a position in European culture and forms so prominent a feature of our social heritage that its influence upon symbolism cannot be excluded. Its existence alone should