ent works, however, notably Frazer's _Golden Bough_ and
Crawley's _Mystic Rose_, throw light directly or indirectly on this
question.

[354] Robertson Smith points out that since snakes are the last noxious
animals which man is able to exterminate, they are the last to be
associated with demons. They were ultimately the only animals directly and
constantly associated with the Arabian _jinn_, or demon, and the serpent
of Eden was a demon, and not a temporary disguise of Satan (_Religion of
Semites_, pp. 129 and 442). Perhaps it was, in part, because the snake was
thus the last embodiment of demonic power that women were associated with
it, women being always connected with the most ancient religious beliefs.

[355] In the northern territory of the same colony menstruation is said to
be due to a bandicoot scratching the vagina and causing blood to flow
(_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, p. 177, November, 1894). At
Glenelg, and near Portland, in Victoria, the head of a snake was inserted
into a virgin's vagina, when not considered large enough for intercourse
(Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, vol. ii, p. 319).

[356] Frazer, _Golden Bough_, vol. ii, p. 231. Crawley (_The Mystic Rose_,
p. 192) also brings together various cases of primitive peoples who
believe the bite of a snake to be the cause of menstruation.

[357] Meyners d'Estrez, "Etude ethnographique sur le lezard chez les
peuples malais et polynesiens," _L'Anthropologie_, 1892; see also, as
regards the lizard in Samoan folk-lore, _Globus_, vol. lxxiv, No. 16.

[358] _Journal Anthropological Society of Bombay_, 1890, p. 589.

[359] Boudin (_Etude Anthropologique: Culte du Serpent_, Paris, 1864, pp.
66-70) brings forward examples of this aspect of snake-worship.

[360] Attilio de Marchi, _Il Culto privato di Roma_, p. 74. The
association of the power of generation with a god in the form of a serpent
is, indeed, common; see, e.g. Sir W.M. Ramsay, _Cities of Phrygia_, vol.
i, p. 94.

[361] It is noteworthy that one of the names for the penis used by the
Swahili women of German East Africa, in a kind of private language of
their own, is "the snake" (Zache, _Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_, p. 73,
1899). It may be added that Maeder ("Interpretation de Quelques Reves,"
_Archives de Psychologie_, April, 1907) brings forward various items of
folk-lore showing the phallic significance of the serpent, as well as
evidence indicating that, in the dreams of