object:1.09 - The Worship of Trees
book class:The Golden Bough
author class:James George Frazer
subject class:Occultism
class:chapter
IX. The Worship of Trees
1. Tree-spirits
IN THE RELIGIOUS history of the Aryan race in Europe the worship of
trees has played an important part. Nothing could be more natural.
For at the dawn of history Europe was covered with immense primaeval
forests, in which the scattered clearings must have appeared like
islets in an ocean of green. Down to the first century before our
era the Hercynian forest stretched eastward from the Rhine for a
distance at once vast and unknown; Germans whom Caesar questioned
had travelled for two months through it without reaching the end.
Four centuries later it was visited by the Emperor Julian, and the
solitude, the gloom, the silence of the forest appear to have made a
deep impression on his sensitive nature. He declared that he knew
nothing like it in the Roman empire. In our own country the wealds
of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex are remnants of the great forest of
Anderida, which once clothed the whole of the south-eastern portion
of the island. Westward it seems to have stretched till it joined
another forest that extended from Hampshire to Devon. In the reign
of Henry II. the citizens of London still hunted the wild bull and
the boar in the woods of Hampstead. Even under the later
Plantagenets the royal forests were sixty-eight in number. In the
forest of Arden it was said that down to modern times a squirrel
might leap from tree to tree for nearly the whole length of
Warwickshire. The excavation of ancient pile-villages in the valley
of the Po has shown that long before the rise and probably the
foundation of Rome the north of Italy was covered with dense woods
of elms, chestnuts, and especially of oaks. Archaeology is here
confirmed by history; for classical writers contain many references
to Italian forests which have now disappeared. As late as the fourth
century before our era Rome was divided from central Etruria by the
dreaded Ciminian forest, which Livy compares to the woods of
Germany. No merchant, if we may trust the Roman historian, had ever
penetrated its pathless solitudes; and it was deemed a most daring
feat when a Roman general, after sending two scouts to explore its
intricacies, led his army into the forest and, making his way to a
ridge of the wooded mountains, looked down on the rich Etrurian
fields spread out below. In Greece beautiful woods of pine, oak, and
other trees still linger on the slopes of the high Arcadian
mountains, still adorn with their verdure the deep gorge through
which the Ladon hurries to join the sacred Alpheus, and were still,
down to a few years ago, mirrored in the dark blue waters of the
lonely lake of Pheneus; but they are mere fragments of the forests
which clothed great tracts in antiquity, and which at a more remote
epoch may have spanned the Greek peninsula from sea to sea.
From an examination of the Teutonic words for "temple" Grimm has
made it probable that amongst the Germans the oldest sanctuaries
were natural woods. However that may be, tree-worship is well
attested for all the great European families of the Aryan stock.
Amongst the Celts the oak-worship of the Druids is familiar to every
one, and their old word for sanctuary seems to be identical in
origin and meaning with the Latin _nemus,_ a grove or woodland
glade, which still survives in the name of Nemi. Sacred groves were
common among the ancient Germans, and tree-worship is hardly extinct
amongst their descendants at the present day. How serious that
worship was in former times may be gathered from the ferocious
penalty appointed by the old German laws for such as dared to peel
the bark of a standing tree. The culprit's navel was to be cut out
and nailed to the part of the tree which he had peeled, and he was
to be driven round and round the tree till all his guts were wound
about its trunk. The intention of the punishment clearly was to
replace the dead bark by a living substitute taken from the culprit;
it was a life for a life, the life of a man for the life of a tree.
At Upsala, the old religious capital of Sweden, there was a sacred
grove in which every tree was regarded as divine. The heathen Slavs
worshipped trees and groves. The Lithuanians were not converted to
Christianity till towards the close of the fourteenth century, and
amongst them at the date of their conversion the worship of trees
was prominent. Some of them revered remarkable oaks and other great
shady trees, from which they received oracular responses. Some
maintained holy groves about their villages or houses, where even to
break a twig would have been a sin. They thought that he who cut a
bough in such a grove either died suddenly or was crippled in one of
his limbs. Proofs of the prevalence of tree-worship in ancient
Greece and Italy are abundant. In the sanctuary of Aesculapius at
Cos, for example, it was forbidden to cut down the cypress-trees
under a penalty of a thousand drachms. But nowhere, perhaps, in the
ancient world was this antique form of religion better preserved
than in the heart of the great metropolis itself. In the Forum, the
busy centre of Roman life, the sacred fig-tree of Romulus was
worshipped down to the days of the empire, and the withering of its
trunk was enough to spread consternation through the city. Again, on
the slope of the Palatine Hill grew a cornel-tree which was esteemed
one of the most sacred objects in Rome. Whenever the tree appeared
to a passer-by to be drooping, he set up a hue and cry which was
echoed by the people in the street, and soon a crowd might be seen
running helter-skelter from all sides with buckets of water, as if
(says Plutarch) they were hastening to put out a fire.
Among the tribes of the Finnish-Ugrian stock in Europe the heathen
worship was performed for the most part in sacred groves, which were
always enclosed with a fence. Such a grove often consisted merely of
a glade or clearing with a few trees dotted about, upon which in
former times the skins of the sacrificial victims were hung. The
central point of the grove, at least among the tribes of the Volga,
was the sacred tree, beside which everything else sank into
insignificance. Before it the worshippers assembled and the priest
offered his prayers, at its roots the victim was sacrificed, and its
boughs sometimes served as a pulpit. No wood might be hewn and no
branch broken in the grove, and women were generally forbidden to
enter it.
But it is necessary to examine in some detail the notions on which
the worship of trees and plants is based. To the savage the world in
general is animate, and trees and plants are no exception to the
rule. He thinks that they have souls like his own, and he treats
them accordingly. "They say," writes the ancient vegetarian
Porphyry, "that primitive men led an unhappy life, for their
superstition did not stop at animals but extended even to plants.
For why should the slaughter of an ox or a sheep be a greater wrong
than the felling of a fir or an oak, seeing that a soul is implanted
in these trees also?" Similarly, the Hidatsa Indians of North
America believe that every natural object has its spirit, or to
speak more properly, its shade. To these shades some consideration
or respect is due, but not equally to all. For example, the shade of
the cottonwood, the greatest tree in the valley of the Upper
Missouri, is supposed to possess an intelligence which, if properly
approached, may help the Indians in certain undertakings; but the
shades of shrubs and grasses are of little account. When the
Missouri, swollen by a freshet in spring, carries away part of its
banks and sweeps some tall tree into its current, it is said that
the spirit of the tree cries, while the roots still cling to the
land and until the trunk falls with a splash into the stream.
Formerly the Indians considered it wrong to fell one of these
giants, and when large logs were needed they made use only of trees
which had fallen of themselves. Till lately some of the more
credulous old men declared that many of the misfortunes of their
people were caused by this modern disregard for the rights of the
living cottonwood. The Iroquois believed that each species of tree,
shrub, plant, and herb had its own spirit, and to these spirits it
was their custom to return thanks. The Wanika of Eastern Africa
fancy that every tree, and especially every coco-nut tree, has its
spirit; "the destruction of a cocoa-nut tree is regarded as
equivalent to matricide, because that tree gives them life and
nourishment, as a mother does her child." Siamese monks, believing
that there are souls everywhere, and that to destroy anything
whatever is forcibly to dispossess a soul, will not break a branch
of a tree, "as they will not break the arm of an innocent person."
These monks, of course, are Buddhists. But Buddhist animism is not a
philosophical theory. It is simply a common savage dogma
incorporated in the system of an historical religion. To suppose,
with Benfey and others, that the theories of animism and
transmigration current among rude peoples of Asia are derived from
Buddhism, is to reverse the facts.
Sometimes it is only particular sorts of trees that are supposed to
be tenanted by spirits. At Grbalj in Dalmatia it is said that among
great beeches, oaks, and other trees there are some that are endowed
with shades or souls, and whoever fells one of them must die on the
spot, or at least live an invalid for the rest of his days. If a
woodman fears that a tree which he has felled is one of this sort,
he must cut off the head of a live hen on the stump of the tree with
the very same axe with which he cut down the tree. This will protect
him from all harm, even if the tree be one of the animated kind. The
silk-cotton trees, which rear their enormous trunks to a stupendous
height, far out-topping all the other trees of the forest, are
regarded with reverence throughout West Africa, from the Senegal to
the Niger, and are believed to be the abode of a god or spirit.
Among the Ewespeaking peoples of the Slave Coast the indwelling god
of this giant of the forest goes by the name of Huntin. Trees in
which he specially dwells--for it is not every silk-cotton tree that
he thus honours--are surrounded by a girdle of palm-leaves; and
sacrifices of fowls, and occasionally of human beings, are fastened
to the trunk or laid against the foot of the tree. A tree
distinguished by a girdle of palm-leaves may not be cut down or
injured in any way; and even silk-cotton trees which are not
supposed to be animated by Huntin may not be felled unless the
woodman first offers a sacrifice of fowls and palm-oil to purge
himself of the proposed sacrilege. To omit the sacrifice is an
offence which may be punished with death. Among the Kangra mountains
of the Punjaub a girl used to be annually sacrificed to an old
cedar-tree, the families of the village taking it in turn to supply
the victim. The tree was cut down not very many years ago.
If trees are animate, they are necessarily sensitive and the cutting
of them down becomes a delicate surgical operation, which must be
performed with as tender a regard as possible for the feelings of
the sufferers, who otherwise may turn and rend the careless or
bungling operator. When an oak is being felled "it gives a kind of
shriekes or groanes, that may be heard a mile off, as if it were the
genius of the oake lamenting. E. Wyld, Esq., hath heard it severall
times." The Ojebways "very seldom cut down green or living trees,
from the idea that it puts them to pain, and some of their
medicine-men profess to have heard the wailing of the trees under
the axe." Trees that bleed and utter cries of pain or indignation
when they are hacked or burned occur very often in Chinese books,
even in Standard Histories. Old peasants in some parts of Austria
still believe that forest-trees are animate, and will not allow an
incision to be made in the bark without special cause; they have
heard from their fathers that the tree feels the cut not less than a
wounded man his hurt. In felling a tree they beg its pardon. It is
said that in the Upper Palatinate also old woodmen still secretly
ask a fine, sound tree to forgive them before they cut it down. So
in Jarkino the woodman craves pardon of the tree he fells. Before
the Ilocanes of Luzon cut down trees in the virgin forest or on the
mountains, they recite some verses to the following effect: "Be not
uneasy, my friend, though we fell what we have been ordered to
fell." This they do in order not to draw down on themselves the
hatred of the spirits who live in the trees, and who are apt to
avenge themselves by visiting with grievous sickness such as injure
them wantonly. The Basoga of Central Africa think that, when a tree
is cut down, the angry spirit which inhabits it may cause the death
of the chief and his family. To prevent this disaster they consult a
medicine-man before they fell a tree. If the man of skill gives
leave to proceed, the woodman first offers a fowl and a goat to the
tree; then as soon as he has given the first blow with the axe, he
applies his mouth to the cut and sucks some of the sap. In this way
he forms a brotherhood with the tree, just as two men become
blood-brothers by sucking each other's blood. After that he can cut
down his tree-brother with impunity.
But the spirits of vegetation are not always treated with deference
and respect. If fair words and kind treatment do not move them,
stronger measures are sometimes resorted to. The durian-tree of the
East Indies, whose smooth stem often shoots up to a height of eighty
or ninety feet without sending out a branch, bears a fruit of the
most delicious flavour and the most disgusting stench. The Malays
cultivate the tree for the sake of its fruit, and have been known to
resort to a peculiar ceremony for the purpose of stimulating its
fertility. Near Jugra in Selangor there is a small grove of
durian-trees, and on a specially chosen day the villagers used to
assemble in it. Thereupon one of the local sorcerers would take a
hatchet and deliver several shrewd blows on the trunk of the most
barren of the trees, saying, "Will you now bear fruit or not? If you
do not, I shall fell you." To this the tree replied through the
mouth of another man who had climbed a mangostin-tree hard by (the
durian-tree being unclimbable), "Yes, I will now bear fruit; I beg
of you not to fell me." So in Japan to make trees bear fruit two men
go into an orchard. One of them climbs up a tree and the other
stands at the foot with an axe. The man with the axe asks the tree
whether it will yield a good crop next year and threatens to cut it
down if it does not. To this the man among the branches replies on
behalf of the tree that it will bear abundantly. Odd as this mode of
horticulture may seem to us, it has its exact parallels in Europe.
On Christmas Eve many a South Slavonian and Bulgarian peasant swings
an axe threateningly against a barren fruit-tree, while another man
standing by intercedes for the menaced tree, saying, "Do not cut it
down; it will soon bear fruit." Thrice the axe is swung, and thrice
the impending blow is arrested at the entreaty of the intercessor.
After that the frightened tree will certainly bear fruit next year.
The conception of trees and plants as animated beings naturally
results in treating them as male and female, who can be married to
each other in a real, and not merely a figurative or poetical, sense
of the word. The notion is not purely fanciful, for plants like
animals have their sexes and reproduce their kind by the union of
the male and female elements. But whereas in all the higher animals
the organs of the two sexes are regularly separated between
different individuals, in most plants they exist together in every
individual of the species. This rule, however, is by no means
universal, and in many species the male plant is distinct from the
female. The distinction appears to have been observed by some
savages, for we are told that the Maoris "are acquainted with the
sex of trees, etc., and have distinct names for the male and female
of some trees." The ancients knew the difference between the male
and the female date-palm, and fertilised them artificially by
shaking the pollen of the male tree over the flowers of the female.
The fertilisation took place in spring. Among the heathen of Harran
the month during which the palms were fertilised bore the name of
the Date Month, and at this time they celebrated the marriage
festival of all the gods and goddesses. Different from this true and
fruitful marriage of the palm are the false and barren marriages of
plants which play a part in Hindoo superstition. For example, if a
Hindoo has planted a grove of mangos, neither he nor his wife may
taste of the fruit until he has formally married one of the trees,
as a bridegroom, to a tree of a different sort, commonly a
tamarind-tree, which grows near it in the grove. If there is no
tamarind to act as bride, a jasmine will serve the turn. The
expenses of such a marriage are often considerable, for the more
Brahmans are feasted at it, the greater the glory of the owner of
the grove. A family has been known to sell its golden and silver
trinkets, and to borrow all the money they could in order to marry a
mango-tree to a jasmine with due pomp and ceremony. On Christmas Eve
German peasants used to tie fruit-trees together with straw ropes to
make them bear fruit, saying that the trees were thus married.
In the Moluccas, when the clove-trees are in blossom, they are
treated like pregnant women. No noise may be made near them; no
light or fire may be carried past them at night; no one may approach
them with his hat on, all must uncover in their presence. These
precautions are observed lest the tree should be alarmed and bear no
fruit, or should drop its fruit too soon, like the untimely delivery
of a woman who has been frightened in her pregnancy. So in the East
the growing rice-crop is often treated with the same considerate
regard as a breeding woman. Thus in Amboyna, when the rice is in
bloom, the people say that it is pregnant and fire no guns and make
no other noises near the field, for fear lest, if the rice were thus
disturbed, it would miscarry, and the crop would be all straw and no
grain.
Sometimes it is the souls of the dead which are believed to animate
trees. The Dieri tribe of Central Australia regard as very sacred
certain trees which are supposed to be their fathers transformed;
hence they speak with reverence of these trees, and are careful that
they shall not be cut down or burned. If the settlers require them
to hew down the trees, they earnestly protest against it, asserting
that were they to do so they would have no luck, and might be
punished for not protecting their ancestors. Some of the Philippine
Islanders believe that the souls of their ancestors are in certain
trees, which they therefore spare. If they are obliged to fell one
of these trees, they excuse themselves to it by saying that it was
the priest who made them do it. The spirits take up their abode, by
preference, in tall and stately trees with great spreading branches.
When the wind rustles the leaves, the natives fancy it is the voice
of the spirit; and they never pass near one of these trees without
bowing respectfully, and asking pardon of the spirit for disturbing
his repose. Among the Ignorrotes, every village has its sacred tree,
in which the souls of the dead forefathers of the hamlet reside.
Offerings are made to the tree, and any injury done to it is
believed to entail some misfortune on the village. Were the tree cut
down, the village and all its inhabitants would inevitably perish.
In Corea the souls of people who die of the plague or by the
roadside, and of women who expire in childbirth, invariably take up
their abode in trees. To such spirits offerings of cake, wine, and
pork are made on heaps of stones piled under the trees. In China it
has been customary from time immemorial to plant trees on graves in
order thereby to strengthen the soul of the deceased and thus to
save his body from corruption; and as the evergreen cypress and pine
are deemed to be fuller of vitality than other trees, they have been
chosen by preference for this purpose. Hence the trees that grow on
graves are sometimes identified with the souls of the departed.
Among the Miao-Kia, an aboriginal race of Southern and Western
China, a sacred tree stands at the entrance of every village, and
the inhabitants believe that it is tenanted by the soul of their
first ancestor and that it rules their destiny. Sometimes there is a
sacred grove near a village, where the trees are suffered to rot and
die on the spot. Their fallen branches cumber the ground, and no one
may remove them unless he has first asked leave of the spirit of the
tree and offered him a sacrifice. Among the Maraves of Southern
Africa the burial-ground is always regarded as a holy place where
neither a tree may be felled nor a beast killed, because everything
there is supposed to be tenanted by the souls of the dead.
In most, if not all, of these cases the spirit is viewed as
incorporate in the tree; it animates the tree and must suffer and
die with it. But, according to another and probably later opinion,
the tree is not the body, but merely the abode of the tree-spirit,
which can quit it and return to it at pleasure. The inhabitants of
Siaoo, an East Indian island, believe in certain sylvan spirits who
dwell in forests or in great solitary trees. At full moon the spirit
comes forth from his lurking-place and roams about. He has a big
head, very long arms and legs, and a ponderous body. In order to
propitiate the wood-spirits people bring offerings of food, fowls,
goats, and so forth to the places which they are supposed to haunt.
The people of Nias think that, when a tree dies, its liberated
spirit becomes a demon, which can kill a coco-nut palm by merely
lighting on its branches, and can cause the death of all the
children in a house by perching on one of the posts that support it.
Further, they are of opinion that certain trees are at all times
inhabited by roving demons who, if the trees were damaged, would be
set free to go about on errands of mischief. Hence the people
respect these trees, and are careful not to cut them down.
Not a few ceremonies observed at cutting down haunted trees are
based on the belief that the spirits have it in their power to quit
the trees at pleasure or in case of need. Thus when the Pelew
Islanders are felling a tree, they conjure the spirit of the tree to
leave it and settle on another. The wily negro of the Slave Coast,
who wishes to fell an _ashorin_ tree, but knows that he cannot do it
so long as the spirit remains in the tree, places a little palm-oil
on the ground as a bait, and then, when the unsuspecting spirit has
quitted the tree to partake of this dainty, hastens to cut down its
late abode. When the Toboongkoos of Celebes are about to clear a
piece of forest in order to plant rice, they build a tiny house and
furnish it with tiny clothes and some food and gold. Then they call
together all the spirits of the wood, offer them the little house
with its contents, and beseech them to quit the spot. After that
they may safely cut down the wood without fearing to wound
themselves in so doing. Before the Tomori, another tribe of Celebes,
fell a tall tree they lay a quid of betel at its foot, and invite
the spirit who dwells in the tree to change his lodging; moreover,
they set a little ladder against the trunk to enable him to descend
with safety and comfort. The Mandelings of Sumatra endeavour to lay
the blame of all such misdeeds at the door of the Dutch authorities.
Thus when a man is cutting a road through a forest and has to fell a
tall tree which blocks the way, he will not begin to ply his axe
until he has said: "Spirit who lodgest in this tree, take it not ill
that I cut down thy dwelling, for it is done at no wish of mine but
by order of the Controller." And when he wishes to clear a piece of
forest-land for cultivation, it is necessary that he should come to
a satisfactory understanding with the woodland spirits who live
there before he lays low their leafy dwellings. For this purpose he
goes to the middle of the plot of ground, stoops down, and pretends
to pick up a letter. Then unfolding a bit of paper he reads aloud an
imaginary letter from the Dutch Government, in which he is strictly
enjoined to set about clearing the land without delay. Having done
so, he says: "You hear that, spirits. I must begin clearing at once,
or I shall be hanged."
Even when a tree has been felled, sawn into planks, and used to
build a house, it is possible that the woodland spirit may still be
lurking in the timber, and accordingly some people seek to
propitiate him before or after they occupy the new house. Hence,
when a new dwelling is ready the Toradjas of Celebes kill a goat, a
pig, or a buffalo, and smear all the woodwork with its blood. If the
building is a _lobo_ or spirit-house, a fowl or a dog is killed on
the ridge of the roof, and its blood allowed to flow down on both
sides. The ruder Tonapoo in such a case sacrifice a human being on
the roof. This sacrifice on the roof of a _lobo_ or temple serves
the same purpose as the smearing of blood on the woodwork of an
ordinary house. The intention is to propitiate the forest-spirits
who may still be in the timber; they are thus put in good humour and
will do the inmates of the house no harm. For a like reason people
in Celebes and the Moluccas are much afraid of planting a post
upside down at the building of a house; for the forest-spirit, who
might still be in the timber, would very naturally resent the
indignity and visit the inmates with sickness. The Kayans of Borneo
are of opinion that tree-spirits stand very stiffly on the point of
honour and visit men with their displeasure for any injury done to
them. Hence after building a house, whereby they have been forced to
ill-treat many trees, these people observe a period of penance for a
year during which they must abstain from many things, such as the
killing of bears, tiger-cats, and serpents.
2. Beneficent Powers of Tree-Spirits
WHEN a tree comes to be viewed, no longer as the body of the
tree-spirit, but simply as its abode which it can quit at pleasure,
an important advance has been made in religious thought. Animism is
passing into polytheism. In other words, instead of regarding each
tree as a living and conscious being, man now sees in it merely a
lifeless, inert mass, tenanted for a longer or shorter time by a
supernatural being who, as he can pass freely from tree to tree,
thereby enjoys a certain right of possession or lordship over the
trees, and, ceasing to be a tree-soul, becomes a forest god. As soon
as the tree-spirit is thus in a measure disengaged from each
particular tree, he begins to change his shape and assume the body
of a man, in virtue of a general tendency of early thought to clothe
all abstract spiritual beings in concrete human form. Hence in
classical art the sylvan deities are depicted in human shape, their
woodland character being denoted by a branch or some equally obvious
symbol. But this change of shape does not affect the essential
character of the tree-spirit. The powers which he exercised as a
tree-soul incorporate in a tree, he still continues to wield as a
god of trees. This I shall now attempt to prove in detail. I shall
show, first, that trees considered as animate beings are credited
with the power of making the rain to fall, the sun to shine, flocks
and herds to multiply, and women to bring forth easily; and, second,
that the very same powers are attributed to tree-gods conceived as
anthropomorphic beings or as actually incarnate in living men.
First, then, trees or tree-spirits are believed to give rain and
sunshine. When the missionary Jerome of Prague was persuading the
heathen Lithuanians to fell their sacred groves, a multitude of
women besought the Prince of Lithuania to stop him, saying that with
the woods he was destroying the house of god from which they had
been wont to get rain and sunshine. The Mundaris in Assam think that
if a tree in the sacred grove is felled the sylvan gods evince their
displeasure by withholding rain. In order to procure rain the
inhabitants of Monyo, a village in the Sagaing district of Upper
Burma, chose the largest tamarind-tree near the village and named it
the haunt of the spirit (_nat_) who controls the rain. Then they
offered bread, coco-nuts, plantains, and fowls to the guardian
spirit of the village and to the spirit who gives rain, and they
prayed, "O Lord _nat_ have pity on us poor mortals, and stay not the
rain. Inasmuch as our offering is given ungrudgingly, let the rain
fall day and night." Afterwards libations were made in honour of the
spirit of the tamarind-tree; and still later three elderly women,
dressed in fine clothes and wearing necklaces and earrings, sang the
Rain Song.
Again, tree-spirits make the crops to grow. Amongst the Mundaris
every village has its sacred grove, and "the grove deities are held
responsible for the crops, and are especially honoured at all the
great agricultural festivals." The negroes of the Gold Coast are in
the habit of sacrificing at the foot of certain tall trees, and they
think that if one of these were felled all the fruits of the earth
would perish. The Gallas dance in couples round sacred trees,
praying for a good harvest. Every couple consists of a man and
woman, who are linked together by a stick, of which each holds one
end. Under their arms they carry green corn or grass. Swedish
peasants stick a leafy branch in each furrow of their corn-fields,
believing that this will ensure an abundant crop. The same idea
comes out in the German and French custom of the Harvest-May. This
is a large branch or a whole tree, which is decked with ears of
corn, brought home on the last waggon from the harvest-field, and
fastened on the roof of the farmhouse or of the barn, where it
remains for a year. Mannhardt has proved that this branch or tree
embodies the tree-spirit conceived as the spirit of vegetation in
general, whose vivifying and fructifying influence is thus brought
to bear upon the corn in particular. Hence in Swabia the Harvest-May
is fastened amongst the last stalks of corn left standing on the
field; in other places it is planted on the corn-field and the last
sheaf cut is attached to its trunk.
Again, the tree-spirit makes the herds to multiply and blesses women
with offspring. In Northern India the _Emblica officinalis_ is a
sacred tree. On the eleventh of the month Phalgun (February)
libations are poured at the foot of the tree, a red or yellow string
is bound about the trunk, and prayers are offered to it for the
fruitfulness of women, animals, and crops. Again, in Northern India
the coco-nut is esteemed one of the most sacred fruits, and is
called Sriphala, or the fruit of Sri, the goddess of prosperity. It
is the symbol of fertility, and all through Upper India is kept in
shrines and presented by the priests to women who desire to become
mothers. In the town of Qua, near Old Calabar, there used to grow a
palm-tree which ensured conception to any barren woman who ate a nut
from its branches. In Europe the May-tree or May-pole is apparently
supposed to possess similar powers over both women and cattle. Thus
in some parts of Germany on the first of May the peasants set up
May-trees or May-bushes at the doors of stables and byres, one for
each horse and cow; this is thought to make the cows yield much
milk. Of the Irish we are told that "they fancy a green bough of a
tree, fastened on May-day against the house, will produce plenty of
milk that summer."
On the second of July some of the Wends used to set up an oak-tree
in the middle of the village with an iron cock fastened to its top;
then they danced round it, and drove the cattle round it to make
them thrive. The Circassians regard the pear-tree as the protector
of cattle. So they cut down a young pear-tree in the forest, branch
it, and carry it home, where it is adored as a divinity. Almost
every house has one such pear-tree. In autumn, on the day of the
festival, the tree is carried into the house with great ceremony to
the sound of music and amid the joyous cries of all the inmates, who
compliment it on its fortunate arrival. It is covered with candles,
and a cheese is fastened to its top. Round about it they eat, drink,
and sing. Then they bid the tree good-bye and take it back to the
courtyard, where it remains for the rest of the year, set up against
the wall, without receiving any mark of respect.
In the Tuhoe tribe of Maoris "the power of making women fruitful is
ascribed to trees. These trees are associated with the navel-strings
of definite mythical ancestors, as indeed the navel-strings of all
children used to be hung upon them down to quite recent times. A
barren woman had to embrace such a tree with her arms, and she
received a male or a female child according as she embraced the east
or the west side." The common European custom of placing a green
bush on May Day before or on the house of a beloved maiden probably
originated in the belief of the fertilising power of the
tree-spirit. In some parts of Bavaria such bushes are set up also at
the houses of newly-married pairs, and the practice is only omitted
if the wife is near her confinement; for in that case they say that
the husband has "set up a May-bush for himself." Among the South
Slavonians a barren woman, who desires to have a child, places a new
chemise upon a fruitful tree on the eve of St. George's Day. Next
morning before sunrise she examines the garment, and if she finds
that some living creature has crept on it, she hopes that her wish
will be fulfilled within the year. Then she puts on the chemise,
confident that she will be as fruitful as the tree on which the
garment has passed the night. Among the Kara-Kirghiz barren women
roll themselves on the ground under a solitary apple-tree, in order
to obtain offspring. Lastly, the power of granting to women an easy
delivery at child-birth is ascribed to trees both in Sweden and
Africa. In some districts of Sweden there was formerly a _bardtrd_
or guardian-tree (lime, ash, or elm) in the neighbourhood of every
farm. No one would pluck a single leaf of the sacred tree, any
injury to which was punished by ill-luck or sickness. Pregnant women
used to clasp the tree in their arms in order to ensure an easy
delivery. In some negro tribes of the Congo region pregnant women
make themselves garments out of the bark of a certain sacred tree,
because they believe that this tree delivers them from the dangers
that attend child-bearing. The story that Leto clasped a palm-tree
and an olive-tree or two laurel-trees, when she was about to give
birth to the divine twins Apollo and Artemis, perhaps points to a
similar Greek belief in the efficacy of certain trees to facilitate
delivery.
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