of these religious conceptions, and not to keep on that level is--
mythology. Apollo, in the hymn to Hermes, sung on a sacred
occasion, needs to ask an old vine-dresser for intelligence.
Hyperion "sees all and hears all," but needs to be informed, by his
daughters, of the slaughter of his kine. The Lord, in the Book of
Job, has to ask Satan, "Whence comest thou?" Now for the sake of
dramatic effect, now from pure inability to live on the level of
his highest thought, man mythologises and anthropomorphises, in
Greece or Israel, as in Australia.

It does not follow that there is "nothing sacred" in his religion.
Mr. Hartland offers me a case in point. In Mrs. Langloh Parker's
Australian Legendary Tales (pp. 11, 94), are myths of low
adventures of Baiame. In her More Australian Legendary Tales (pp.
84-99), is a very poetical and charming aspect of the Baiame
belief. Mr. Hartland says that I will "seek to put" the first set
of stories out of court, as "a kind of joke with no sacredness
about it". Not I, but the Noongahburrah tribe themselves make this
essential distinction. Mrs. Langloh Parker says:[1] "The former
series" (with the low Baiame myths) "were all such legends as are
told to the black picaninnies; among the present are some they
would not be allowed to hear, touching as they do on sacred things,
taboo to the young". The blacks draw the line which I am said to
seek to draw.


[1] More Legendary Tales, p. xv.


In yet another case[1] grotesque hunting adventures of Baiame are