It is refreshing to turn from these river wraiths to the spirits of the sea, who are more powerful but less exacting. A cocoanut is enough to keep them in good humour, and a special day is named for this offering, called _Narali Purnima_, or Cocoanut Holiday. On that day multitudes of people flock to the sea-shore in Bombay to offer their _puja_ to the sea to keep it quiet after the monsoon. The Brahmin first offers prayers, then the votary throws into the sea the holy water which the Brahmin pours into the hollow of his hands, then some red lead, then a few flowers and some rice, and last of all the cocoanut. The safety of the seas during the fair season is thus insured. CHAPTER XIII. WHO WERE THE WATER DEMONS? Whence arose the fear of evil spirits? Who were those water demons? Both philology and history confirm the view that the _Devas_ or demons of old were in many cases either the conquered aborigines of the various lands in which the ancient Aryans settled themselves, or hostile races dwelling along their frontiers. Out of this hostility of races coming in close contact with one another sprang various superstitions. In some cases the armies of the aborigines were represented as accompanied by their own guardian spirits, who waged war upon the newcomers and who were therefore regarded as demoniacal. In other cases, the aborigines were themselves credited with the power of exercising demon functions or assuming demon forms. Thus the people of Iran believed that the land of Turan was full of demons. This influence of the conquered people did not die out after the struggle with them was over. Not only did the aborigines continue to believe in their own demoniacal powers and to observe their old rites and customs in the new régime, but they also spread the beliefs in many ways among their conquerors. All untoward occurrences and unusual natural phenomena thus came to be attributed to the malignant action of those evil spirits. Storms, floods, famines, disease and death all proceeded from the _Devas_, who in the _Yasna Haptanhaiti_ of the Zoroastrians are described as “the wicked, bad, wrongful originators of mischief, the most baneful, destructive and basest of beings.” Professor Robertson Smith relegates demonism to the position of a cult hostile to and separate from the tribal beliefs of early people and Mr. Walhouse points out[50] that these beliefs in demons “belong to the Turanian races and are antagonistic to the Aryan genius and feelings.”