Chapter XXI.—Dianus and Diana Pp. 376-387

Recapitulation: rise of sacred kings endowed with magical or divine

powers; the King of the Wood at Nemi seems to have personified Jupiter

the god of the oak and to have mated with Diana the goddess of the oak;

Dianus (Janus) and Diana originally dialectically different forms of

Jupiter and Juno; Janus (Dianus) not originally a god of doors;

double-headed figure of Janus (Dianus) derived from a custom of placing

him as sentinel at doorways; parallel custom among the negroes of

Surinam; originally the King of the Wood at Nemi represented Dianus

(Janus), a duplicate form of Jupiter, the god of the oak, the thunder,

and the sky.

INDEX Pp. 389-417

CHAPTER VIII

DEPARTMENTAL KINGS OF NATURE

The preceding investigation has proved that the same [Sidenote:

Departmental kings of nature.] union of sacred functions with a royal

title which meets us in the King of the Wood at Nemi, the Sacrificial

King at Rome, and the magistrate called the King at Athens, occurs

frequently outside the limits of classical antiquity and is a common

feature of societies at all stages from barbarism to civilisation.

Further, it appears that the royal priest is often a king, not only in

name but in fact, swaying the sceptre as well as the crosier. All this

confirms the traditional view of the origin of the titular and priestly

kings in the republics of ancient Greece and Italy. At least by shewing

that the combination of spiritual and temporal power, of which

Graeco-Italian tradition preserved the memory, has actually existed in

many places, we have obviated any suspicion of improbability that might

have attached to the tradition. Therefore we may now fairly ask, May not

the King of the Wood have had an origin like that which a probable

tradition assigns to the Sacrificial King of Rome and the titular King

of Athens? In other words, may not his predecessors in office have been

a line of kings whom a republican revolution stripped of their political

power, leaving them only their religious functions and the shadow of a

crown? There are at least two reasons for answering this question in the

negative. One reason is drawn from the abode of the priest of Nemi; the

other from his title, the King of the Wood. If his predecessors had been

kings in the ordinary sense, he would surely have been found residing,

like the fallen kings of Rome and Athens, in the city of which the

sceptre had passed from him. This city must have been Aricia, for there

was none nearer. But Aricia was three miles off from his forest

sanctuary by the lake shore. If he reigned, it was not in the city, but

in the greenwood. Again his title, King of the Wood, hardly allows us to

suppose that he had ever been a king in the common sense of the word.

More likely he was a king of nature, and of a special side of nature,

namely, the woods from which he took his title. If we could find

instances of what we may call departmental kings of nature, that is of

persons supposed to rule over particular elements or aspects of nature,

they would probably present a closer analogy to the King of the Wood

than the divine kings we have been hitherto considering, whose control

of nature is general rather than special. Instances of such departmental

kings are not wanting.

[Sidenote: Kings of rain in Africa.] On a hill at Bomma near the mouth

of the Congo dwells Namvulu Vumu, King of the Rain and Storm.[1] Of some

of the tribes on the Upper Nile we are told that they have no kings in

the common sense; the only persons whom they acknowledge as such are the

Kings of the Rain, _Mata Kodou_, who are credited with the power of

giving rain at the proper time, that is in the rainy season. Before the

rains begin to fall at the end of March the country is a parched and

arid desert; and the cattle, which form the people’s chief wealth,

perish for lack of grass. So, when the end of March draws on, each

householder betakes himself to the King of the Rain and offers him a cow

that he may make the blessed waters of heaven to drip on the brown and

withered pastures. If no shower falls, the people assemble and demand

that the king shall give them rain; and if the sky still continues

cloudless, they rip up his belly, in which he is believed to keep the

storms. Amongst the Bari tribe one of these Rain Kings made rain by

sprinkling water on the ground out of a handbell.[2]

[Sidenote: Priesthood of the Alfai.] Among tribes on the outskirts of

Abyssinia a similar office exists and has been thus described by an

observer. “The priesthood of the Alfai, as he is called by the Barea and

Kunama, is a remarkable one; he is believed to be able to make rain.

This office formerly existed among the Algeds and appears to be still

common to the Nuba negroes. The Alfai of the Barea, who is also

consulted by the northern Kunama, lives near Tembadere on a mountain

alone with his family. The people bring him tribute in the form of

clothes and fruits, and cultivate for him a large field of his own. He

is a kind of king, and his office passes by inheritance to his brother

or sister’s son. He is supposed to conjure down rain and to drive away

the locusts. But if he disappoints the people’s expectation and a great

drought arises in the land, the Alfai is stoned to death, and his

nearest relations are obliged to cast the first stone at him. When we

passed through the country, the office of Alfai was still held by an old

man; but I heard that rain-making had proved too dangerous for him and

that he had renounced his office.”[3]

[Sidenote: Kings of Fire and Water in Cambodia.] In the backwoods of

Cambodia live two mysterious sovereigns known as the King of the Fire

and the King of the Water. Their fame is spread all over the south of

the great Indo-Chinese peninsula; but only a faint echo of it has

reached the West. Down to a few years ago no European, so far as is

known, had ever seen either of them; and their very existence might have

passed for a fable, were it not that till lately communications were

regularly maintained between them and the King of Cambodia, who year by

year exchanged presents with them. The Cambodian gifts were passed from

tribe to tribe till they reached their destination; for no Cambodian

would essay the long and perilous journey. The tribe amongst whom the

Kings of Fire and Water reside is the Chréais or Jaray, a race with

European features but a sallow complexion, inhabiting the forest-clad

mountains and high tablelands which separate Cambodia from Annam. Their

royal functions are of a purely mystic or spiritual order; they have no

political authority; they are simple peasants, living by the sweat of

their brow and the offerings of the faithful. According to one account

they live in absolute solitude, never meeting each other and never

seeing a human face. They inhabit successively seven towers perched upon

seven mountains, and every year they pass from one tower to another.

People come furtively and cast within their reach what is needful for

their subsistence. The kingship lasts seven years, the time necessary to

inhabit all the towers successively; but many die before their time is

out. The offices are hereditary in one or (according to others) two

royal families, who enjoy high consideration, have revenues assigned to

them, and are exempt from the necessity of tilling the ground. But

naturally the dignity is not coveted, and when a vacancy occurs, all

eligible men (they must be strong and have children) flee and hide

themselves. Another account, admitting the reluctance of the hereditary

candidates to accept the crown, does not countenance the report of their

hermit-like seclusion in the seven towers. For it represents the people

as prostrating themselves before the mystic kings whenever they appear

in public, it being thought that a terrible hurricane would burst over

the country if this mark of homage were omitted. Probably, however,

these are mere fables such as commonly shed a glamour of romance over

the distant and unknown. A French officer, who had an interview with the

redoubtable Fire King in February 1891, found him stretched on a bamboo

couch, diligently smoking a long copper pipe, and surrounded by people

who paid him no great deference. In spite of his mystic vocation the

sorcerer had no charm or talisman about him, and was in no way

distinguishable from his fellows except by his tall stature. Another

writer reports that the two kings are much feared, because they are

supposed to possess the evil eye; hence every one avoids them, and the

potentates considerately cough to announce their approach and to allow

people to get out of their way. They enjoy extraordinary privileges and

immunities, but their authority does not extend beyond the few villages

of their neighbourhood. Like many other sacred kings, of whom we shall

read in the sequel, the Kings of Fire and Water are not allowed to die a

natural death, for that would lower their reputation. Accordingly when

one of them is seriously ill, the elders hold a consultation and if they

think he cannot recover they stab him to death. His body is burned and

the ashes are piously collected and publicly honoured for five years.

Part of them is given to the widow, and she keeps them in an urn, which

she must carry on her back when she goes to weep on her husband’s grave.

[Sidenote: Supernatural powers of the Kings of Fire and Water.] We are

told that the Fire King, the more important of the two, whose

supernatural powers have never been questioned, officiates at marriages,

festivals, and sacrifices in honour of the _Yan_ or spirit. On these

occasions a special place is set apart for him; and the path by which he

approaches is spread with white cotton cloths. A reason for confining

the royal dignity to the same family is that this family is in

possession of certain famous talismans which would lose their virtue or

disappear if they passed out of the family. These talismans are three:

the fruit of a creeper called _Cui_, gathered ages ago at the time of

the last deluge, but still fresh and green; a rattan, also very old but

bearing flowers that never fade; and lastly, a sword containing a _Yan_

or spirit, who guards it constantly and works miracles with it. The

spirit is said to be that of a slave, whose blood chanced to fall upon

the blade while it was being forged, and who died a voluntary death to

expiate his involuntary offence. By means of the two former talismans

the Water King can raise a flood that would drown the whole earth. If

the Fire King draws the magic sword a few inches from its sheath, the

sun is hidden and men and beasts fall into a profound sleep; were he to

draw it quite out of the scabbard, the world would come to an end. To

this wondrous brand sacrifices of buffaloes, pigs, fowls, and ducks are

offered for rain. It is kept swathed in cotton and silk; and amongst the

annual presents sent by the King of Cambodia were rich stuffs to wrap

the sacred sword.

[Sidenote: Gifts sent by the Kings of Fire and Water to the King of

Cambodia.] In return the Kings of Fire and Water sent him a huge wax

candle and two calabashes, one full of rice and the other of sesame. The

candle bore the impress of the Fire King’s middle finger, and was

probably thought to contain the seed of fire, which the Cambodian

monarch thus received once a year fresh from the Fire King himself This

holy candle was kept for sacred uses. On reaching the capital of

Cambodia it was entrusted to the Brahmans, who laid it up beside the

regalia, and with the wax made tapers which were burned on the altars on

solemn days. As the candle was the special gift of the Fire King, we may

conjecture that the rice and sesame were the special gift of the Water

King. The latter was doubtless king of rain as well as of water, and the

fruits of the earth were boons conferred by him on men. In times of

calamity, as during plague, floods, and war, a little of this sacred

rice and sesame was scattered on the ground “to appease the wrath of the

maleficent spirits.” Contrary to the common usage of the country, which

is to bury the dead, the bodies of both these mystic monarchs are burnt,

but their nails and some of their teeth and bones are religiously

preserved as amulets. It is while the corpse is being consumed on the

pyre that the kinsmen of the deceased magician flee to the forest and

hide themselves for fear of being elevated to the invidious dignity

which he has just vacated. The people go and search for them, and the

first whose lurking place they discover is made King of Fire or

Water.[4]

These, then, are examples of what I have called departmental kings of

nature. But it is a far cry to Italy from the forests of Cambodia and

the sources of the Nile. And though Kings of Rain, Water, and Fire have

been found, we have still to discover a King of the Wood to match the

Arician priest who bore that title. Perhaps we shall find him nearer

home.

Footnote 1:

A. Bastian, _Die deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Küste_, ii. 230.

Footnote 2:

“Excursion de M. Brun-Rollet dans la région supérieure du Nil,”

_Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_ (Paris), IVme Série, iv. (1852)

pp. 421-423; _ib._ viii. (1854) pp. 387 _sq._; Brun-Rollet, _Le Nil

Blanc et le Soudan_ (Paris, 1855), pp. 227 _sqq._ As to the

rain-making chiefs of this region see above, vol. i. pp. 345 _sqq._ As

to the distress and privations endured by these people in the dry

season, see E. de Pruyssenaere, “Reisen und Forschungen im Gebiete des

Weissen und Blauen Nil,” _Petermann’s Mittheilungen_, _Ergänzungsheft_

No. 50 (Gotha, 1877), p. 23.

Footnote 3:

W. Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_ (Schaffhausen, 1864), p. 474.

Footnote 4:

Mgr. Cuénot, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xiii. (1841) p.

143; H. Mouhot, _Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China_ (London,

1864), ii. 35; A. Bastian, “Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Gebirgsstämme

in Kambodia,” _Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin_,

i. (1866) p. 37; J. Moura, _Le Royaume du Cambodge_ (Paris, 1883), i.

432-436; E. Aymonier, “Notes sur les coutumes et croyances

superstitieuses des Cambodgiens,” in _Cochinchine Française:

Excursions et reconnaissances_, No. 16 (Saigon, 1883), pp. 172 _sq._;

_id._, _Notes sur le Laos_ (Saigon, 1885), p. 60; Le Capitaine Cupet,

“Chez les populations sauvages du Sud de l’Annam,” _Tour du monde_,

No. 1682, April 1, 1893, pp. 193-204; _id._, in _Mission Pavie,

Indo-Chine 1879-1895, Géographie et voyages_, iii. (Paris, 1900) pp.

297-318; Tournier, _Notice sur le Laos Français_ (Hanoi, 1900), pp.

111 _sq._; A. Lavallée, “Notes ethnographiques sur diverses tribus du

Sud-Est de l’Inde-Chine,” _Bulletin de l’École Française

d’Extrême-Orient_, i. (Hanoi, 1901) pp. 303 _sq._ Mgr. Cuénot mentions

only the King of Fire. Bastian speaks as if the King of Fire was also

the King of Water. Both writers report at second hand.

CHAPTER IX

THE WORSHIP OF TREES

§ 1. Tree-spirits

[Sidenote: Great forests of ancient Europe.] 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.[5] 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.[6] 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.[7] The excavation of ancient pile-villages

in the valley of the Po has shewn 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.[8] Archaeology is here

confirmed by history; for classical writers contain many references to

Italian forests which have now disappeared.[9] 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.[10]

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.[11]

[Sidenote: Tree-worship practised by all the Aryan races in Europe.]

From an examination of the Teutonic words for “temple” Grimm has made it

probable that amongst the Germans the oldest sanctuaries were natural

woods.[12] However this 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,[13] and their old

word for a sanctuary seems to be identical in origin and meaning with

the Latin _némus_, a grove or woodland glade, which still survives in

the name of Nemi.[14] Sacred groves were common among the ancient

Germans, and tree-worship is hardly extinct amongst their descendants at

the present day.[15] 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.[16] 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.[17] The heathen

Slavs worshipped trees and groves.[18] 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.[19] Proofs of the prevalence of tree-worship in ancient Greece

and Italy are abundant.[20] 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.[21] 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.[22] 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.[23]

[Sidenote: Tree-worship among the Finnish-Ugrian peoples.] 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. The Ostyaks and Woguls, two peoples of

the Finnish-Ugrian stock in Siberia, had also sacred groves in which

nothing might be touched, and where the skins of the sacrificed animals

were suspended; but these groves were not enclosed with fences.[24] Near

Kuopio, in Finland, there was a famous grove of ancient moss-grown firs,

where the people offered sacrifices and practised superstitious customs

down to about 1650, when a sturdy veteran of the Thirty Years’ War dared

to cut it down at the bidding of the pastor. Sacred groves now hardly

exist in Finland, but sacred trees to which offerings are brought are

still not very uncommon. On some firs the skulls of bears are nailed,

apparently that the hunter may have good luck in the chase.[25] The

Ostyaks are said never to have passed a sacred tree without shooting an

arrow at it as a mark of respect. In many places they hung furs and

skins on the holy trees in the forest; but having observed that these

furs were often appropriated and carried off by unscrupulous travellers,

they adopted the practice of hewing the trunks into great blocks, which

they decked with their offerings and preserved in safe places. The

custom marks a transition from the worship of trees to the worship of

idols carved out of the sacred wood. Within their sacred groves no grass

or wood might be cut, no game hunted, no fish caught, not even a draught

of water drunk. When they passed them in their canoes, they were careful

not to touch the land with the oar, and if the journey through the

hallowed ground was long, they laid in a store of water before entering

on it, for they would rather suffer extreme thirst than slake it by

drinking of the sacred stream. The Ostyaks also regarded as holy any

tree on which an eagle had built its nest for several years, and they

spared the bird as well as the tree. No greater injury could be done

them than to shoot such an eagle or destroy its nest.[26]

[Sidenote: Trees are regarded by the savage as animate.] 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?”[27] 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.[28] 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.[29] 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.”[30] In the Yasawu islands of

Fiji a man will never eat a coco-nut without first asking its leave—“May

I eat you, my chief?”[31] Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia

young people addressed the following prayer to the sunflower root before

they ate the first roots of the season: “I inform thee that I intend to

eat thee. Mayest thou always help me to ascend, so that I may always be

able to reach the tops of mountains, and may I never be clumsy! I ask

this from thee, Sunflower-Root. Thou art the greatest of all in

mystery.” To omit this prayer would have made the eater of the root

lazy, and caused him to sleep long in the morning. We are not told, but

may conjecture, that these Indians ascribed to the sunflower the sun’s

power of climbing above the mountain-tops and of rising betimes in the

morning; hence whoever ate of the plant, with all the due formalities,

would naturally acquire the same useful properties. It is not so easy to

say why women had to observe continence in cooking and digging the root,

and why, when they were cooking it, no man might come near the oven.[32]

The Dyaks ascribe souls to trees, and do not dare to cut down an old

tree. In some places, when an old tree has been blown down, they set it

up, smear it with blood, and deck it with flags “to appease the soul of

the tree.”[33] 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.”[34] 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. Buddhism in this respect borrowed

from savagery, not savagery from Buddhism.[35] According to Chinese

belief, the spirits of plants are never shaped like plants but have

commonly the form either of human beings or of animals, for example

bulls and serpents. Occasionally at the felling of a tree the

tree-spirit has been seen to rush out in the shape of a blue bull.[36]

In China “to this day the belief in tree-spirits dangerous to man is

obviously strong. In southern Fuhkien it deters people from felling any

large trees or chopping off heavy branches, for fear the indwelling

spirit may become irritated and visit the aggressor or his neighbours

with disease and calamity. Especially respected are the green banyan or

_ch’îng_, the biggest trees to be found in that part of China. In Amoy

some people even show a strong aversion from planting trees, the

planters, as soon as the stems have become as thick as their necks,

being sure to be throttled by the indwelling spirits. No explanation of

this curious superstition was ever given us. It may account to some

extent for the almost total neglect of forestry in that part of China,

so that hardly any except spontaneous trees grow there.”[37]

[Sidenote: Particular sorts of trees tenanted by spirits; sacrifices to

tree-spirits.] 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.[38] The

silk-cotton trees, which rear their [Sidenote: Silk-cotton trees in West

Africa.] 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 Ewe-speaking 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.[39] [Sidenote: Sycamores in ancient Egypt.] Everywhere in

Egypt on the borders of the cultivated land, and even at some distance

from the valley of the Nile, you meet with fine sycamores standing

solitary and thriving as by a miracle in the sandy soil; their living

green contrasts strongly with the tawny hue of the surrounding

landscape, and their thick impenetrable foliage bids defiance even in

summer to the noonday sun. The secret of their verdure is that their

roots strike down into rills of water that trickle by unseen sluices

from the great river. Of old the Egyptians of every rank esteemed these

trees divine, and paid them regular homage. They gave them figs,

raisins, cucumbers, vegetables, and water in earthenware pitchers, which

charitable folk filled afresh every day. Passers-by slaked their thirst

at these pitchers in the sultry hours, and paid for the welcome draught

by a short prayer. The spirit that animated these beautiful trees

generally lurked unseen, but sometimes he would shew his head or even

his whole body outside the trunk, but only to retire into it again.[40]

People in Congo set calabashes of palm-wine at the foot of certain trees

for the trees to drink when they are thirsty.[41] The [Sidenote: Sacred

trees in Africa, Syria, and Patagonia.] Wanika of Eastern Africa pay

special honour to the spirits of coco-nut palms in return for the many

benefits conferred on them by the trees. To cut down a coco-nut palm is

an inexpiable offence, equivalent to matricide. They sacrifice to the

tree on many occasions. When a man in gathering the coco-nuts has fallen

from the palm, they attribute it to the wrath of the tree-spirit, and

resort to the oddest means of appeasing him.[42] The Masai particularly

reverence the _subugo_ tree, the bark of which has medical properties,

and a species of parasitic fig which they call _retete_. The green figs

are eaten by boys and girls, and older people propitiate the tree by

pouring the blood of a goat at the foot of the trunk and strewing grass

on the branches.[43] The natives of the Bissagos Islands, off the west

coast of Africa, sacrifice dogs, cocks, and oxen to their sacred trees,

but they eat the flesh of the victims and leave only the horns, fastened

to the trees, for the spirits.[44] In a Turkish village of Northern

Syria there is a very old oak-tree which the people worship, burning

incense to it and bringing offerings as they would to a shrine.[45] In

Patagonia, between the Rio Negro and the Rio Colorado, there stands

solitary an ancient acacia-tree with a gnarled and hollow trunk. The

Indians revere it as the abode of a spirit, and hang offerings of

blankets, ponchos, ribbons, and coloured threads on it, so that the tree

presents the aspect of an old clothes’ shop, the tattered, weather-worn

garments drooping sadly from the boughs. No Indian passes it without

leaving something, if it be only a little horse-hair which he ties to a

branch. The hollow trunk contains offerings of tobacco, beads, and

sometimes coins. But the best evidence of the sanctity of the tree are

the bleached skeletons of many horses which have been killed in honour

of the spirit; for the horse is the most precious sacrifice that these

Indians can offer. They slaughter the animal also to propitiate the

spirits of the deep and rapid [Sidenote: Sacrifices to trees.] rivers

which they have often to ford or swim.[46] The Kayans of Central Borneo

ascribe souls to the trees which yield the poison they use to envenom

their arrows. They think that the spirit of the _tasem_ tree (_Antiaris

toxicaria_) is particularly hard to please; but if the wood has a strong

and agreeable scent, they know that the man who felled the tree must

have contrived by his offerings to mollify the peevish spirit.[47] In

some of the Louisiade Islands there are certain large trees under which

the natives hold their feasts. These trees seem to be regarded as

endowed with souls; for a portion of the feast is set aside for them,

and the bones of pigs and of human beings are everywhere deeply imbedded

in their branches.[48] 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.[49] On Christmas Eve it is still customary in

some parts of Germany to gird fruit-trees with ropes of straw on which

the sausages prepared for the festival have lain. This is supposed to

make the trees bear fruit. In the Mark of Brandenburg the person who

ties the straw round the trees says, “Little tree, I make you a present,

and you will make me one.” The people say that if the trees receive

gifts, they will bestow gifts in return. The custom, which is clearly a

relic of tree-worship, is often observed on New Year’s night or at any

time between Christmas and Twelfth Night.[50]

[Sidenote: Trees supposed to be sensitive and to feel wounds.] 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.”[51] 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.”[52] 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.[53] 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 [Sidenote:

Apologies offered to trees for cutting them down.] less than a wounded

man his hurt. In felling a tree they beg its pardon.[54] 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.[55] So in Jarkino

the woodman craves pardon of the tree he fells.[56] 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.[57] When the Tagalogs of the

Philippines wish to pluck a flower, they ask leave of the genius

(_nono_) of the flower to do so; when they are obliged to cut down a

tree they beg pardon of the genius of the tree and excuse themselves by

saying that it was the priest who bade them fell it.[58] Among the

Tigre-speaking tribes in the north of Abyssinia people are afraid to

fell a green and fruit-bearing tree lest they incur the curse of God,

which is heard in the groaning of the tree as it sinks to the ground.

But if a man is bold enough to cut down such a tree, he will say to it,

“Thy curse abide in thee,” or he will allege that it was not he but an

elephant or a rhinoceros that knocked it down.[59] Amongst the Hos of

Togoland, in West Africa, when a man wishes to make palm-wine he hires

woodmen to fell the trees. They go into the palm-wood, set some meal on

the ground and say to the wood, “That is your food. The old man at home

sent us to cut you down. We are still children who know nothing at all.

The old man at home has sent us.” They say this because they think that

the wood is a spirit and that it is angry with them.[60] Before a Karo

Batak cuts down a tree, he will offer it betel and apologies; and if in

passing the place afterwards he should see the tree weeping or, as we

should say, exuding sap, he hastens to console it by sprinkling the

blood of a fowl on the stump.[61] 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.[62] An ancient Indian ritual directs that in

preparing to fell a tree the woodman should lay a stalk of grass on the

spot where the blow is to fall, with the words, “O plant, shield it!”

and that he should say to the axe, “O axe, hurt it not!” When the tree

had fallen, he poured melted butter on the stump, saying, “Grow thou out

of this, O lord of the forest, grow with a hundred shoots! May we grow

with a thousand shoots!” Then he anointed the severed stem and wound a

rope of grass round it.[63]

[Sidenote: Bleeding trees.] Again, when a tree or plant is cut it is

sometimes thought to bleed. Some Indians dare not cut a certain plant,

because there comes out a red juice which they take for the blood of the

plant.[64] In Samoa there was a grove of trees which no one dared hew

down. Once some strangers tried to do so, but blood flowed from the

tree, and the sacrilegious strangers fell ill and died.[65] Down to 1859

there stood a sacred larch-tree at Nauders in the Tyrol which was

thought to bleed whenever it was cut; moreover people fancied that the

steel pierced the woodman’s body to the same depth that it pierced the

tree, and that the wound on his body would not heal until the bark

closed over the scar on the trunk. So sacred was the tree that no one

would gather fuel or cut timber near it; and to curse, scold, or quarrel

in its neighbourhood was regarded as a crying sin which would be

supernaturally punished on the spot. Angry disputants were often hushed

with the warning whisper, “Don’t, the sacred tree is here.”[66]

[Sidenote: Trees threatened in order to make them bear fruit.] 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 you

not to fell me.”[67] 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.[68] 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.[69] So at the village of Ucria in

Sicily, if a tree obstinately refuses to bear fruit, the owner pretends

to hew it down. Just as the axe is about to fall, a friend intercedes

for the tree, begging him to have patience for one year more, and

promising not to interfere again if the culprit has not mended his ways

by then. The owner grants his request, and the Sicilians say that a tree

seldom remains deaf to such a menace. The ceremony is performed on

Easter Saturday.[70] In Armenia the same pantomime is sometimes

performed by two men for the same purpose on Good Friday.[71] In the

Abruzzi the ceremony takes place before sunrise on the morning of St.

John’s Day (Midsummer Day). The owner threatens the trees which are slow

to bear fruit. Thrice he walks round each sluggard repeating his threat

and striking the trunk with the head of an axe.[72] In Lesbos, when an

orange-tree or a lemon-tree does not bear fruit, the owner will

sometimes set a looking-glass before the tree; then standing with an axe

in his hand over against the tree and gazing at its reflection in the

glass he will feign to fall into a passion and will say aloud, “Bear

fruit, or I’ll cut you down.”[73] When cabbages merely curl their leaves

instead of forming heads as they ought to do, an Esthonian peasant will

go out into the garden before sunrise, clad only in his shirt, and armed

with a scythe, which he sweeps over the refractory vegetables as if he

meant to cut them down. This intimidates the cabbages and brings them to

a sense of their duty.[74]

[Sidenote: Attempts to deceive the spirits of trees and plants.] If

European peasants thus know how to work on the fears of cabbages and

fruit-trees, the subtle Malay has learned how to overreach the simple

souls of the plants and trees that grow in his native land. Thus, when a

bunch of fruit hangs from an _aren_ palm-tree, and in reaching after it

you tread on some of the fallen fruit, the Galelareese say that you

ought to grunt like a wild boar in order that your feet may not itch.

The chain of reasoning seems weak to a European mind, but the natives

find no flaw in it. They have observed that wild boars are fond of the

fruit, and run freely about among it as it lies on the ground. From this

they infer that the animal’s feet are proof against the itch which men

suffer through treading on the fruit; and hence they conclude that if,

by grunting in a natural and life-like manner, you can impress the fruit

with the belief that you are a pig, it will treat your feet as tenderly

as the feet of his friends the real pigs.[75] Again, pregnant women in

Java sometimes take a fancy to eat the wild species of a particular

plant (_Colocasia antiquorum_), which, on account of its exceedingly

pungent taste, is not commonly used as food by human beings, though it

is relished by pigs. In such a case it becomes the husband’s duty to go

and look for the plant, but before he gathers it he takes care to grunt

loudly, in order that the plant may take him for a pig, and so mitigate

the pungency of its flavour.[76] Again, in the Madiun district of Java

there grows a plant of which the fruit is believed to be injurious for

men, but not for apes. The urchins who herd buffaloes, and to whom

nothing edible comes amiss, eat this fruit also; but before plucking it

they take the precaution of mimicking the voices of apes, in order to

persuade the plant that its fruit is destined for the maw of these

creatures.[77] Once more, the Javanese scrape the rind of a certain

plant (_Sarcolobus narcoticus_) into a powder, with which they poison

such dangerous beasts as tigers and wild boars. But the rind is believed

not to be a poison for men. Hence the person who gathers the plant has

to observe certain precautions in order that its baneful quality may not

be lost in passing through his hands. He approaches it naked and

creeping on all fours to make the plant think that he is a ravenous

beast and not a man, and to strengthen the illusion he bites the stalk.

After that the deadly property of the rind is assured. But even when the

plant has been gathered and the powder made from it in strict accordance

with certain superstitious rules, care is still needed in handling the

powder, which is regarded as alive and intelligent. It may not be

brought near a corpse, nor may a corpse be carried past the house in

which the powder is kept. For if either of these things were to happen,

the powder, seeing the corpse, would hastily conclude that it had

already done its work, and so all its noxious quality would be gone.[78]

The Indians of the Upper Orinoco extract a favourite beverage from

certain palm-trees which grow in their forests. In order to make the

trees bear abundance of fruit the medicine-men blow sacred trumpets

under them; but how this is supposed to produce the desired effect does

not appear. The trumpets (_botutos_) are objects of religious

veneration; no woman may look on them under pain of death. Candidates

for initiation into the mystery of the trumpets must be men of good

character and celibate. The initiated members scourge each other, fast,

and practise other austerities.[79]

[Sidenote: Trees married to each other.] 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.”[80] The [Sidenote: Artificial fertilisation of the date-palm.]

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.[81] 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.[82]

Different from this true and fruitful marriage of the palm are the false

and barren marriages of plants which play a part [Sidenote: Marriages of

trees in India.] 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.[83]

According to another account of the ceremony, a branch of a _bar_ tree

is brought and fixed near one of the mango trees in the grove to

represent the _bar_ or bridegroom, and both are wrapt round with the

same piece of cloth by the owner of the grove and his wife. To complete

the ceremony a bamboo basket containing the bride’s belongings and dowry

on a miniature scale is provided; and after the Brahman priest has done

his part, vermilion, the emblem of a completed marriage, is applied to

the mango as to a bride.[84] Another plant which figures as [Sidenote:

Marriage of the holy basil.] a bride in Hindoo rites is the _tulasi_ or

Holy Basil (_Ocymum sanctum_). It is a small shrub, not too big to be

grown in a large flower-pot, and is often placed in rooms; indeed there

is hardly a respectable Hindoo family that does not possess one. In

spite of its humble appearance, the shrub is pervaded by the essence of

Vishnu and his wife Lakshmi, and is itself worshipped daily as a deity.

The following prayer is often addressed to it: “I adore that _tulasi_ in

whose roots are all the sacred places of pilgrimage, in whose centre are

all the deities, and in whose upper branches are all the Vedas.” The

plant is especially a woman’s divinity, being regarded as an embodiment

of Vishnu’s wife Lakshmi, or of Rama’s wife Sita, or of Krishna’s wife

Rukmini. Women worship it by walking round it and praying or offering

flowers and rice to it. Now this sacred plant, as the embodiment of a

goddess, is annually married to the god Krishna in every Hindoo family.

The ceremony takes place in the month _Karttika_ or November. In Western

India they often bring an idol of the youthful Krishna in a gorgeous

palanquin, followed by a long train of attendants, to the house of a

rich man to be wedded to the basil; and the festivities are celebrated

with great pomp.[85] Again, as the wife of Vishnu, the holy basil is

married to the _Salagrama_, a black fossil ammonite which is regarded as

an embodiment of Vishnu. In North-Western India this marriage of the

plant to the fossil has to be performed before it is lawful to taste of

the fruit of a new orchard. A man holding the fossil personates the

bridegroom, and another holding the basil represents the bride. After

burning a sacrificial fire, the officiating Brahman puts the usual

questions to the couple about to be united. Bride and bridegroom walk

six times round a small spot marked out in the centre of the

orchard.[86] Further, no well is considered lucky until the _Salagrama_

has been solemnly wedded to the holy basil, which stands for the garden

that the well is intended to water. The relations assemble; the owner of

the garden represents the bridegroom, while a kinsman of his wife

personates the bride. Gifts are given to the Brahmans, a feast is held

in the garden, and after that both garden and well may be used without

danger.[87] The same marriage of the sacred fossil to the sacred plant

is celebrated annually by the Rajah of Orchha at Ludhaura. A former

Rajah used to spend a sum equal to about thirty thousand pounds, being

one-fourth of his revenue, upon the ceremony. On one occasion over a

hundred thousand people are said to have been present at the rite, and

to have been feasted at the expense of the Rajah. The procession

consisted of eight elephants, twelve hundred camels, and four thousand

horses, all mounted and elegantly caparisoned. The most sumptuously

decorated of the elephants carried the fossil god to pay his bridal

visit to the little shrub goddess. On such an occasion all the rites of

a regular marriage are performed, and afterwards the newly-wedded couple

are left to repose together in the temple till the next year.[88] 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.[89]

[Sidenote: Trees in blossom and rice in bloom treated like pregnant

women.] 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.[90] 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.[91] The Javanese

also regard the bloom on the rice as a sign that the plant is pregnant;

and they treat it accordingly, by mingling in the water that irrigates

the fields a certain astringent food prepared from sour fruit, which is

believed to be wholesome for women with child.[92] In some districts of

Western Borneo there must be no talk of corpses or demons in the fields,

else the spirit of the growing rice would be frightened and flee away to

Java.[93] The Toboongkoos of Central Celebes will not fire a gun in a

ricefield, lest the rice should be frightened away.[94] The Chams of

Binh-Thuan, in Cochin-China, do not dare to touch the rice in the

granary at mid-day, because the rice is then asleep, and it would be

both rude and dangerous to disturb its noonday slumber.[95] In Orissa

growing rice is “considered as a pregnant woman, and the same ceremonies

are observed with regard to it as in the case of human females.”[96] In

Poso, a district of Central Celebes, when the rice-ears are beginning to

form, women go through the field feeding the young ears with soft-boiled

rice to make them grow fast. They carry the food in calabashes, and

grasping the ears in their hands bend them over into the vessels that

they may partake of the strengthening pap. The reason for boiling the

rice soft is that the ears are regarded as young children who could not

digest rice cooked in the usual way.[97] The Tomori of Central Celebes

feed the ripening rice by touching it with the contents of a broken

egg.[98] When the grain begins to form, the people of Gayo, a district

of northern Sumatra, regard the rice as pregnant and feed it with a pap

composed of rice-meal, coco-nut, and treacle, which they deposit on

leaves in the middle and at the corners of the field. And when the crop

is plentiful and the rice has been threshed, they give it water to drink

in a pitcher, which they bury to the neck in the heap of grain.[99]

[Sidenote: Trees supposed to be tenanted by the souls of the dead.]

Sometimes it is the souls of the dead which are believed to animate

trees. The Dieri tribe of South 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.[100] 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, in the

district of Lepanto, 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.[101] The natives of Bontoc, a

province in the north of Luzon, cut down the woods near their villages,

but leave a few fine trees standing as the abode of the spirits of their

ancestors (_anitos_); and they honour the spirits by depositing food

under the trees.[102] The Dyaks believe that when a man dies by

accident, as by drowning, it is a sign that the gods mean to exclude him

from the realms of bliss. Accordingly his body is not buried, but

carried into the forest and there laid down. The souls of such

unfortunates pass into trees or animals or fish, and are much dreaded by

the Dyaks, who abstain from using certain kinds of wood, or eating

certain sorts of fish, because they are supposed to contain the souls of

the dead.[103] Once, while walking with a Dyak through the jungle, Sir

Hugh Low observed that his companion, after raising his sword to strike

a great snake, suddenly arrested his arm and suffered the reptile to

escape. On asking the reason, he was told by the Dyak that the bush in

front of which they were standing had been a man, a kinsman of his own,

who, dying some ten years before, had appeared in a dream to his widow

and told her that he had become that particular bamboo-tree. Hence the

ground and everything on it was sacred, and the serpent might not be

interfered with. The Dyak further related that in spite of the warning

given to the woman in the vision, a man had been hardy enough to cut a

branch of the tree, but that the fool had paid for his temerity with his

life, for he died soon afterwards. A little bamboo altar stood in front

of the bush, on which the remnants of offerings presented to the spirit

of the tree were still visible when Sir Hugh Low passed that way.[104]

In Corea the souls of people who die of the plague or by the roadside,

and of women who expire in childbed, 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.[105] 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.[106] 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.[107] 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.[108] Trees supposed to be inhabited by spirits of the dead are

reported to be common in Southern Nigeria.[109] Thus in the Indem tribe

on the Cross River every village has a big tree into which the souls of

the villagers are believed to pass at death. Hence they will not allow

these trees to be cut, and they sacrifice to them when people are

ill.[110] Other natives of the Cross River say that the big tree of the

village is “their Life,” and that anybody who breaks a bough of it will

fall sick or die unless he pays a fine to the chief.[111] Some of the

mountaineers on the north-west coast of New Guinea think that the

spirits of their ancestors live on the branches of trees, on which

accordingly they hang rags of red or white cotton, always in the number

of seven or a multiple of seven; also, they place food on the trees or

hang it in baskets from the boughs.[112] Among the Buryats of Siberia

the bones of a deceased shaman are deposited in a hole hewn in the trunk

of a great fir, which is then carefully closed up. Thenceforth the tree

goes by the name of the shaman’s fir, and is looked upon as his abode.

Whoever cuts down such a tree will perish with all his household. Every

tribe has its sacred grove of firs in which the bones of the dead

shamans are buried. In treeless regions these firs often form isolated

clumps on the hills, and are visible from afar.[113] The Lkungen Indians

of British Columbia fancy that trees are transformed men, and that the

creaking of the branches in the wind is their voice.[114] In Croatia,

they say that witches used to be buried under old trees in the forest,

and that their souls passed into the trees and left the villagers in

peace.[115] A tree that grows on a grave is regarded by the South

Slavonian peasant as a sort of fetish. Whoever breaks a twig from it

hurts the soul of the dead, but gains thereby a magic wand, since the

soul embodied in the twig will be at his service.[116] This reminds us

of the story of Polydorus in Virgil,[117] and of the bleeding

pomegranate that grew on the grave of the fratricides Eteocles and

Polynices at Thebes[118]. Similar stories are told far away from the

classic lands of Italy and Greece. In an Annamite tale an old fisherman

makes an incision in the trunk of a tree which has drifted ashore; but

blood flows from the cut, and it appears that an empress with her three

daughters, who had been cast into the sea, are embodied in the

tree.[119] On the Slave Coast of West Africa the negroes tell how from

the mouldering bones of a little boy, who had been murdered by his

brother in the forest, there sprang up an edible fungus, which spoke and

revealed the crime to the child’s mother when she attempted to pluck

it.[120]

[Sidenote: Trees sometimes conceived not as the body but merely as the

abode of spirits.] 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

island of the Sangi group in the East Indies, 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.[121]

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.[122] On the Tanga coast of East Africa mischievous

sprites reside in great trees, especially in the fantastically shaped

baobabs. Sometimes they appear in the shape of ugly black beings, but as

a rule they enter unseen into people’s bodies, from which, after causing

much sickness and misery, they have to be cast out by the sorcerer.[123]

The Warramunga tribe of Central Australia believe that certain trees are

the abode of disembodied human spirits waiting to be born again. No

woman will strike one of these trees with an axe, lest the blow might

disturb one of the spirits, who might come forth from the tree and enter

her body.[124] In the Galla region of East Africa, where the vegetation

is magnificent, there are many sacred trees, the haunts of jinn. Most of

them belong to the sycamore and maple family, but they do not all exhale

an equal odour of sanctity. The _watêsa_, with its edible fruit, is

least revered; people climb it to get the fruit, and this disturbs the

jinn, who naturally do not care to linger among its boughs. The _gute

tubi_, which has no edible fruit, is more sacred. Every Galla tribe has

its sacred tree, which is always one individual of a particular species

called _lafto_. When a tree has been consecrated by a priest it becomes

holy, and no branch of it may be broken. Such trees are loaded with long

threads, woollen bands, and bracelets; the blood of animals is poured on

their roots and sometimes smeared on their trunks, and pots full of

butter, milk, and flesh are placed among the branches or on the ground

under them. In many Galla tribes women may not tread on the shadow of

sacred trees or even approach the trees.[125]

[Sidenote: Ceremonies at felling trees.] 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.[126] 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.[127] The Alfoors of Poso, in Central

Celebes, believe that great trees are inhabited by demons in human form,

and the taller the tree the more powerful the demon. Accordingly they

are careful not to fell such trees, and they leave offerings at the foot

of them for the spirits. But sometimes, when they are clearing land for

cultivation, it becomes necessary to cut down the trees which cumber it.

In that case the Alfoor will call to the demon of the tree and beseech

him to leave his abode and go elsewhere, and he deposits food under the

tree as provision for the spirit on his journey. Then, and not till

then, he may fell the tree. Woe to the luckless wight who should turn a

tree-spirit out of his house without giving him due notice![128] When

the Toboongkoos of Central 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.[129] Before the Tomori

of Central 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.[130] The Sundanese of the

Eastern Archipelago drive golden or silver nails into the trunk of a

sacred tree for the sake of expelling the tree-spirit before they hew

down his abode.[131] They seem to think that, though the nails will hurt

him, his vanity will be soothed by the reflection that they are of gold

or silver. In Rotti, an island to the south of Timor, when they fell a

tree to make a coffin, they sacrifice a dog as compensation to the

tree-spirit whose property they are thus making free with.[132] Before

the Gayos of Northern Sumatra clear a piece of forest for the purpose of

planting tobacco or sugar-cane, they offer a quid of betel to the spirit

whom they call the Lord of the Wood, and beg his leave to quarter

themselves on his domain.[133] 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.”[134] When

the Tagales of the Philippines are about to fell a tree which they

believe to be inhabited by a spirit, they excuse themselves to the

spirit, saying: “The priest has ordered us to do it; the fault is not

ours, nor the will either.”[135] There is a certain tree called _rara_

which the Dyaks believe to be inhabited by a spirit. Before they cut

down one of these trees they strike an axe into the trunk, leave it

there, and call upon the spirit either to quit his dwelling or to give

them a sign that he does not wish it to be meddled with. Then they go

home. Next day they visit the tree, and if they find the axe still

sticking in the trunk, they can fell the tree without danger; there is

no spirit in it, or he would certainly have ejected the axe from his

abode. But if they find the axe lying on the ground, they know that the

tree is inhabited and they will not fell it; for it must surely have

been the spirit of the tree in person who expelled the intrusive axe.

Some sceptical Europeans, however, argue that what casts out the axe is

strychnine in the sap rather than the tree-spirit. They say that if the

sap is running, the axe must necessarily be forced out by the action of

heat and the expansion of the exuding gutta; whereas if the axe remains

in the trunk, this only shews that the tree is not vigorous but ready to

die.[136]

Before they cut down a great tree, the Indians in the neighbourhood of

Santiago Tepehuacan hold a festival in order to appease the tree and so

prevent it from hurting anybody in its fall.[137] In the Greek island of

Siphnos, if woodmen have to fell a tree which they regard as possessed

by a spirit, they are most careful, when it falls, to prostrate

themselves humbly and in silence lest the spirit should chastise them as

it escapes. Sometimes they put a stone on the stump of the tree to

prevent the egress of the spirit.[138] In some parts of Sumatra, so soon

as a tree is felled, a young tree is planted on the stump, and some

betel and a few small coins are also placed on it.[139] The purpose of

the ceremony seems plain. The spirit of the tree is offered a new home

in the young tree planted on the stump of the old one, and the offering

of betel and money is meant to compensate him for the disturbance he has

suffered. Similarly, when the Maghs of Bengal were obliged by Europeans

to cut down trees which the natives believed to be tenanted by spirits,

one of them was always ready with a green sprig, which he ran and placed

in the middle of the stump when the tree fell, “as a propitiation to the

spirit which had been displaced so roughly, pleading at the same time

the orders of the strangers for the work.”[140] In Halmahera, however,

the motive for placing a sprig on the stump is said to be to deceive the

spirit into thinking that the fallen stem is still growing in its old

place.[141] The Gilyaks insert a stick with curled shavings on the stump

of the tree which they have felled, believing that in this way they give

back to the dispossessed tree-spirit his life and soul.[142] German

woodmen make a cross upon the stump while the tree is falling, in the

belief that this enables the spirit of the tree to live upon the

stump.[143] Before the Katodis fell a forest tree, they choose a tree of

the same kind and worship it by presenting a coco-nut, burning incense,

applying a red pigment, and begging it to bless the undertaking.[144]

The intention, perhaps, is to induce the spirit of the former tree to

shift its quarters to the latter. In clearing a wood, a Galelareese must

not cut down the last tree till the spirit in it has been induced to go

away.[145] When the Dyaks fell the jungle on the hills, they often leave

a few trees standing on the hill-tops as a refuge for the dispossessed

tree-spirits.[146] Sailing up the Baram river in Sarawak you pass from

time to time a clearing in the forest where manioc is cultivated. In the

middle of every one of these clearings a solitary tree is always left

standing as a home for the ejected spirits of the wood. Its boughs are

stripped off, all but the topmost, and just under its leafy crown two

cross-pieces are fastened from which rags dangle.[147] Similarly in

India, the Gonds allow a grove of typical trees to remain as a home or

reserve for the woodland spirits when they are clearing away a

jungle.[148] The Mundaris have sacred groves which were left standing

when the land was cleared, lest the sylvan gods, disquieted at the

felling of the trees, should abandon the place.[149] The Miris in Assam

are unwilling to break up new land for cultivation so long as there is

fallow land available; for they fear to offend the spirits of the woods

by hewing down trees needlessly.[150] On the other hand, when a child

has been lost, the Padams of Assam think that it has been stolen by the

spirits of the wood; so they retaliate on the spirits by felling trees

till they find the child. The spirits, fearing to be left without a tree

in which to lodge, give up the child, and it is found in the fork of a

tree.[151]

[Sidenote: Propitiating tree-spirits in house-timber.] 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 Central 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.[152] The Bahaus or Kayans of central 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 illtreat 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. The period of taboo is brought to an end by a

ceremony at which head-hunting, or the pretence of it, plays a part. The

Ooloo-Ayar Dyaks on the Mandai river are still more punctilious in their

observance of taboos after building a house. The length of the penance

depends chiefly on the kind of timber used in the construction of the

dwelling. If the timber was the valuable ironwood, the inmates of the

house must deny themselves various dainties for three years. But the

spirits of humbler trees are less exacting.[153] When the Kayans have

felled an ironwood tree in order to cut it up into planks for a roof,

they will offer a pig to the spirits of the tree, hoping thus to prevent

the spirits from molesting the souls of persons assembled under the

roof.[154]

[Sidenote: Sacred trees the abode of spirits.] Thus the tree is

regarded, sometimes as the body, sometimes as merely the house of the

tree-spirit; and when we read of sacred trees which may not be cut down

because they are the seat of spirits, it is not always possible to say

with certainty in which way the presence of the spirit in the tree is

conceived. In the following cases, perhaps, the trees are regarded as

the dwelling-place of the spirits rather than as their bodies. The Sea

Dyaks point to many a tree as sacred because it is the abode of a spirit

or spirits, and to cut one of these down would provoke the spirit’s

anger, who might avenge himself by visiting the sacrilegious woodman

with sickness.[155] The Battas of Sumatra have been known to refuse to

cut down certain trees because they were the abode of mighty spirits who

would resent the injury.[156] One of the largest and stateliest of the

forest trees in Perak is known as _toallong_; it has a very poisonous

sap which produces great irritation when it comes into contact with the

skin. Many trees of this species have large hollow knobs on their trunks

where branches have been broken off. These knobs are looked upon by the

Malays as houses of spirits, and they object strongly to cut down trees

that are thus disfigured, believing that the man who fells one of them

will die within the year. When clearings are made in the forest these

trees are generally left standing to the annoyance and expense of

planters.[157] The Siamese fear to cut down any very fine trees lest

they should incur the anger of the powerful spirits who inhabit

them.[158] The En, a tribe of Upper Burma, worship the spirits of hills

and forests, and over great tracts of country they will not lay out

fields for fear of offending the spirits. They say that if a tree is

felled a man dies.[159] In every Khond village a large grove, generally

of _sâl_ trees (_Shorea robusta_), is dedicated to the forest god, whose

favour is sought by the sacrifice of birds, hogs, and sheep, together

with an offering of rice and an addled egg. This sacred grove is

religiously preserved. The young trees are occasionally pruned, but not

a twig may be cut for use without the formal consent of the village and

the ceremonial propitiation of the god.[160] In some parts of Berar the

holy groves are so carefully preserved, that during the annual festivals

held in them it is customary to gather and burn solemnly all dead and

fallen branches and trees.[161] The Larka Kols of India believe that the

tops of trees are the abode of spirits who are disturbed by the felling

of the trees and will take vengeance.[162] The Parahiya, a Dravidian

tribe of Mirzapur, think that evil spirits live in the _sâl_, _pîpal_,

and _mahua_ trees; they make offerings to such trees and will not climb

into their branches.[163] In Travancore demons are supposed to reside in

certain large old trees, which it would be sacrilegious and dangerous to

hew down. A rough stone is generally placed at the foot of one of these

trees as an image or emblem, and turmeric powder is rubbed on it.[164]

Some of the Western tribes of British New Guinea dread certain female

devils who inhabit large trees and are very dangerous. Trees supposed to

be the abode of these demons are treated with much respect and never cut

down.[165] Near Old Calabar there is a ravine full of the densest and

richest vegetation, whence a stream of limpid water flows purling to the

river. The spot was considered by a late king to be hallowed ground, the

residence of Anansa, the tutelary god of Old Calabar. The people had

strict orders to revere the grove, and no branch of it might be

cut.[166] Among the Bambaras of the Upper Niger every village has its

sacred tree, generally a tamarind, which is supposed to be the abode of

the fetish and is carefully preserved. The fetish is consulted on every

important occasion, and sacrifices of sheep, dogs, and fowls,

accompanied with offerings of millet and fruits, are made under the

sacred tree.[167] In the deserts of Arabia a modern traveller found a

great solitary acacia-tree which the Bedouins believed to be possessed

by a jinnee. Shreds of cotton and horns of goats hung among the boughs

and nails were knocked into the trunk. An Arab strongly dissuaded the

traveller from cutting a branch of the tree, assuring him that it was

death to do so.[168] The Yourouks, who inhabit the southern coasts of

Asia Minor and the heights of Mount Taurus, have sacred trees which they

never cut down from fear of driving away the spirits that own them.[169]

The old Prussians believed that gods inhabited tall trees, such as oaks,

from which they gave audible answers to enquirers; hence these trees

were not felled, but worshipped as the homes of divinities. Amongst the

trees thus venerated by them was the elder-tree.[170] The Samagitians

thought that if any one ventured to injure certain groves, or the birds

or beasts in them, the spirits would make his hands or feet

crooked.[171] Down to the nineteenth century the Esthonians stood in

such awe of many trees, which they considered as the seat of mighty

spirits, that they would not even pluck a flower or a berry on the

ground where the shadow of the trees fell, much less would they dare to

break a branch from the tree itself.[172]

[Sidenote: Sacred groves.] Even where no mention is made of

wood-spirits, we may generally assume that when trees or groves are

sacred and inviolable, it is because they are believed to be either

inhabited or animated by sylvan deities. In Central India the _bar_ tree

(_Ficus Indica_) and the _pipal_ (_Ficus religiosa_) are sacred, and

every child learns the saying that “it is better to die a leper than

pluck a leaf of a _pipal_, and he who can wound a _bar_ will kick his

little sister.”[173] In Livonia there is a sacred grove in which, if any

man fells a tree or breaks a branch, he will die within the year.[174]

The Wotyaks have sacred groves. A Russian who ventured to hew a tree in

one of them fell sick and died next day.[175] The heathen Cheremiss of

South-Eastern Russia have sacred groves, and woe to him who dares to

fell one of the holy trees. If the author of the sacrilege is unknown,

they take a cock or a goose, torture it to death and then throw it on

the fire, while they pray to the gods to punish the sinner and cause him

to perish like the bird.[176] Near a chapel of St. Ninian, in the parish

of Belly, there stood more than a century and a half ago a row of trees,

“all of equal size, thick planted for about the length of a butt,” which

were “looked upon by the superstitious papists as sacred trees, from

which they reckon it sacrilege to take so much as a branch or any of the

fruit.”[177] So in the island of Skye some two hundred and fifty years

ago there was a holy lake, “surrounded by a fair wood, which none

presumes to cut”; and those who ventured to infringe its sanctity by

breaking even a twig either sickened on the spot or were visited

afterwards by “some signal inconvenience.”[178] Sacrifices offered at

cutting down trees are doubtless meant to appease the wood-spirits. In

Gilgit it is usual to sprinkle goat’s blood on a tree of any kind before

felling it.[179] The Akikuyu of British East Africa hold the _mugumu_ or

_mugomo_ tree, a species of fig, sacred on account of its size and fine

appearance; hence they do not ruthlessly cut it down like all other

trees which cumber a patch of ground that is to be cleared for tillage.

Groves of this tree are sacred. In them no axe may be laid to any tree,

no branch broken, no firewood gathered, no grass burnt; and wild animals

which have taken refuge there may not be molested. In these sacred

groves sheep and goats are sacrificed and prayers are offered for rain

or fine weather or in behalf of sick children. The whole meat of the

sacrifices is left in the grove for God (_Ngai_) to eat; the fat is

placed in a cleft of the trunk or in the branches as a tit-bit for him.

He lives up in the boughs but comes down to partake of the food.[180]

§ 2. Beneficent Powers of Tree-Spirits

[Sidenote: Transition of tree-spirit into anthropomorphic deity of the

woods.] 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.[181] 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 shew, 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.

[Sidenote: Trees supposed to give rain and sunshine.] 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.[182] The Mundaris in Assam think that if a tree in the sacred

grove is felled the sylvan gods evince their displeasure by withholding

rain.[183] 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.[184] In Cambodia each village or province has its sacred

tree, the abode of a spirit. If the rains are late the people sacrifice

to the tree.[185] In time of drought the elders of the Wakamba in East

Africa assemble and take a calabash of cider and a goat to a

baobab-tree, where they kill the goat but do not eat it.[186] When

Ovambo women go out to sow corn they take with them in the basket of

seed two green branches of a particular kind of tree (_Peltophorum

africanum Sond._), one of which they plant in the field along with the

first seed sown. The branch is believed to have the power of attracting

rain; hence in one of the native dialects the tree goes by the name of

the “rain-bush.”[187] To extort rain from the tree-spirit a branch is

sometimes dipped in water, as we have seen above.[188] In such cases the

spirit is doubtless supposed to be immanent in the branch, and the water

thus applied to the spirit produces rain by a sort of sympathetic magic,

exactly as we saw that in New Caledonia the rain-makers pour water on a

skeleton, believing that the soul of the deceased will convert the water

into rain.[189] There is hardly room to doubt that Mannhardt is right in

explaining as a rain-charm the European custom of drenching with water

the trees which are cut at certain popular festivals, as midsummer,

Whitsuntide, and harvest.[190]

[Sidenote: Tree-spirits supposed to make the crops grow.] 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.”[191] 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.[192]

Before harvest the Wabondëi of East Africa sacrifice a goat to the

spirit that lives in baobab-trees; the blood is poured into a hole at

the foot of one of the trees. If the sacrifice were omitted the spirit

would send disease and death among the people.[193] 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.[194] Swedish peasants stick a leafy branch in each furrow of

their corn-fields, believing that this will [Sidenote: The Harvest-May.]

ensure an abundant crop.[195] 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.[196] The Harvest-May of Germany has

its counterpart in the _eiresione_ of ancient Greece.[197] The

_eiresione_ was a branch of olive or laurel, bound about with ribbons

and hung with a variety of fruits. This branch was carried in procession

at a harvest festival and was fastened over the door of the house, where

it remained for a year. The object of preserving the Harvest-May or the

_eiresione_ for a year is that the life-giving virtue of the bough may

foster the growth of the crops throughout the year. By the end of the

year the virtue of the bough is supposed to be exhausted and it is

replaced by a new one. Following a similar train of thought some of the

Dyaks of Sarawak are careful at the rice harvest to take up the roots of

a certain bulbous plant, which bears a beautiful crown of white and

fragrant flowers. These roots are preserved with the rice in the granary

and are planted again with the seed-rice in the following season; for

the Dyaks say that the rice will not grow unless a plant of this sort be

in the field.[198]

[Sidenote: Customs like the Harvest-May in India and Africa.] Customs

like that of the Harvest-May appear to exist in India and Africa. At a

harvest festival of the Lhoosai of South-Eastern India the chief goes

with his people into the forest and fells a large tree, which is then

carried into the village and set up in the midst. Sacrifice is offered,

and spirits and rice are poured over the tree. The ceremony closes with

a feast and a dance, at which the unmarried men and girls are the only

performers.[199] Among the Bechuanas the hack-thorn is very sacred, and

it would be a serious offence to cut a bough from it and carry it into

the village during the rainy season. But when the corn is ripe in the

ear the people go with axes, and each man brings home a branch of the

sacred hack-thorn, with which they repair the village cattle-yard.[200]

According to another authority, it is a rule with the Bechuanas that

“neither the hook-thorn nor the milk-tree must be cut down while the

corn is on the ground, for this, they think, would prevent rain. When I

was at Lattakoo, though Mr. Hamilton stood in much need of some

milk-tree timber, he durst not supply himself till all the corn was

gathered in.”[201] Many tribes of South-Eastern Africa will not cut down

timber while the corn is green, fearing that if they did so, the crops

would be destroyed by blight, hail, or early frost.[202] The heathen

Cheremiss, in the Russian Government of Kasan, will not fell trees, mow

grass, or dig the ground while the corn is in bloom.[203] Again, the

fructifying power of the tree is put forth at seed-time as well as at

harvest. Among the Aryan tribes of Gilgit, on the north-western frontier

of India, the sacred tree is the _Chili_, a species of cedar (_Juniperus

excelsa_). At the beginning of wheat-sowing the people receive from the

rajah’s granary a quantity of wheat, which is placed in a skin mixed

with sprigs of the sacred cedar. A large bonfire of the cedar wood is

lighted, and the wheat which is to be sown is held over the smoke. The

rest is ground and made into a large cake, which is baked on the same

fire and given to the ploughman.[204] Here the intention of fertilising

the seed by means of the sacred cedar is unmistakable.

[Sidenote: Fertilising virtue attributed to trees.] In all these cases

the power of fostering the growth of crops, and, in general, of

cultivated plants, is ascribed to trees. The ascription is not

unnatural. For the tree is the largest and most powerful member of the

vegetable kingdom, and man is familiar with it before he takes to

cultivating corn. Hence he naturally places the feebler and, to him,

newer plant under the dominion of the older and more powerful.

[Sidenote: Tree-spirits make herds to multiply and women to bring

forth.] Again, the tree-spirit makes the herds to multiply and blesses

women with offspring. The sacred _Chili_ or cedar of Gilgit was supposed

to possess this virtue in addition to that of fertilising the corn. At

the commencement of wheat-sowing three chosen unmarried youths, after

undergoing daily washing and purification for three days, used to start

for the mountain where the cedars grew, taking with them wine, oil,

bread, and fruit of every kind. Having found a suitable tree they

sprinkled the wine and oil on it, while they ate the bread and fruit as

a sacrificial feast. Then they cut off the branch and brought it to the

village, where, amid general rejoicing, it was placed on a large stone

beside running water. “A goat was then sacrificed, its blood poured over

the cedar branch, and a wild dance took place, in which weapons were

brandished about, and the head of the slaughtered goat was borne aloft,

after which it was set up as a mark for arrows and bullet-practice.

Every good shot was rewarded with a gourd full of wine and some of the

flesh of the goat. When the flesh was finished the bones were thrown

into the stream and a general ablution took place, after which every man

went to his house taking with him a spray of the cedar. On arrival at

his house he found the door shut in his face, and on his knocking for

admission, his wife asked, ‘What have you brought?’ To which he

answered, ‘If you want children, I have brought them to you; if you want

food, I have brought it; if you want cattle, I have brought them;

whatever you want, I have it.’ The door was then opened and he entered

with his cedar spray. The wife then took some of the leaves, and pouring

wine and water on them placed them on the fire, and the rest were

sprinkled with flour and suspended from the ceiling. She then sprinkled

flour on her husband’s head and shoulders, and addressed him thus, ‘Ai

Shiri Bagerthum, son of the fairies, you have come from far!’ _Shiri

Bagerthum_, ‘the dreadful king,’ being the form of address to the cedar

when praying for wants to be fulfilled. The next day the wife baked a

number of cakes, and taking them with her, drove the family goats to the

Chili stone. When they were collected round the stone, she began to pelt

them with pebbles, invoking the Chili at the same time. According to the

direction in which the goats ran off, omens were drawn as to the number

and sex of the kids expected during the ensuing year. Walnuts and

pomegranates were then placed on the Chili stone, the cakes were

distributed and eaten, and the goats followed to pasture in whatever

direction they showed a disposition to go. For five days afterwards this

song was sung in all the houses:—

‘_Dread Fairy King, I sacrifice before you,

How nobly do you stand! you have filled up my house,

You have brought me a wife when I had not one,

Instead of daughters you have given me sons.

You have shown me the ways of right,

You have given me many children._’”[205]

[Sidenote: Fertilising virtue attributed to trees.] Here the driving of

the goats to the stone on which the cedar had been placed is clearly

meant to impart to them the fertilising influence of the cedar. 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.[206] 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.[207] 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.[208] In [Sidenote: Influence of

May-trees on cattle.] 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.[209] 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.”[210] In Suffolk there was an old custom, observed in most

farm-houses, that any servant who could bring in a branch of hawthorn in

blossom on the first of May was entitled to a dish of cream for

breakfast.[211] Similarly, “in parts of Cornwall, till certainly ten

years ago, any child who brought to a dairy on May morning a piece of

hawthorn in bloom, or a piece of fresh bracken, long enough to surround

the earthenware bowl in which cream is kept, was given a bowl of

cream.”[212] On May Day English milkmaids used to dance with garlands on

their pails. One May morning long ago Pepys on his way to Westminster

saw many of them dancing thus to the music of a fiddle while pretty Nel

Gwynne, in her smock sleeves and bodice, watched them from the door of

her lodgings in Drury-lane.[213]

[Sidenote: May-tree or May-bush a protection against witchcraft.]

However in these and similar European customs it seems that the

influence of the tree, bush, or bough is really protective rather than

generative; it does not so much fill the udders of the cows as prevent

them from being drained dry by witches, who ride on broomsticks or

pitchforks through the air on the Eve of May Day (the famous Walpurgis

Night) and make great efforts to steal the milk from the cattle. Hence

the many precautions which the prudent herdsman must take to guard his

beasts at this season from the raids of these baleful creatures. For

example, on May morning the Irish scatter primroses on the threshold,

keep a piece of red-hot iron on the hearth, or twine branches of

whitethorn and mountain-ash or rowan about the door. To save the milk

they cut and peel boughs of mountain-ash (rowan), and bind the twigs

round the milk-pails and the churn.[214] According to a writer of the

sixteenth century, whose description is quoted by Camden, the Irish

“account every woman who fetches fire on May-day a witch, nor will they

give it to any but sick persons, and that with an imprecation, believing

she will steal all the butter the next summer. On May day they kill all

the hares they find among their cattle, supposing them the old women who

have designs on the butter. They imagine the butter so stolen may be

recovered if they take some of the thatch hanging over the door and burn

it.”[215] In the north-east of Scotland pieces of rowan-tree and

woodbine, or of rowan alone, used to be placed over the doors of the

cow-houses on May Day to keep the witches from the kine; and a still

better way of attaining the same object was to tie a cross of rowan-tree

wood with a scarlet thread to each animal’s tail.[216] The Highlanders

of Scotland believe that on Beltane eve, that is the night before May

Day, the witches go about in the shape of hares and suck the milk from

the cows. To guard against their depredations tar was put behind the

ears of the cattle and at the root of the tail, and the house was hung

with rowan-tree.[217] For the same reason the Highlanders say that the

peg of the cow-shackle and the handle and cross of the churn-staff

should always be made of rowan, because that is the most potent charm

against witchcraft.[218] In the Isle of Man on May Day, old style,

people carried crosses of rowan in their hats and fastened May-flowers

over their doors as a protection against elves and witches, and for the

same purpose they tied crosses of rowan to the tails of the cattle. Also

women washed their faces in the dew early on May morning in order to

secure good luck, a fine complexion, and immunity from witches. Further,

the break of day on that morning was the signal for setting the ling or

gorse on fire, which was done for the sake of burning out the witches,

who are wont to take the shape of hares. In some places, indeed, as in

the Lezayre parish, the practice was to burn gorse in the hedge of every

field to drive away the witches, who are still feared in the Isle of

Man.[219] In Norway and Denmark branches of rowan are [Sidenote:

Precautions against witchcraft on May Day and Walpurgis Night.]

similarly used to protect houses and cattle-stalls against witches on

Walpurgis Night, and there, too, it is thought that the churn-staff

should be made of rowan.[220] In Germany a common way of keeping witches

from the cattle on Walpurgis Night is to chalk up three crosses on the

door of the cowhouse.[221] Branches of buckthorn stuck in the muck-heaps

on the eve of May Day answer the same purpose.[222] In Silesia the

precautions taken at this season against witches are many and various;

for example, pieces of buckthorn are nailed crosswise over the door of

the cowhouse; pitchforks and harrows, turned upside down, with the

prongs pointing outwards, are placed at the doors; and a sod of fresh

turf from a meadow is laid before the threshold and strewed with

marsh-marigolds. Before the witches can pass the threshold, they must

count every blade of grass in the turf and every petal of the marigolds;

and while they are still counting the day breaks and their power is

gone. For the same reason little birch-trees are set up at the

house-door, because the witches cannot enter the house till they have

counted all the leaves; and before they have done the sum it is broad

daylight, and they must flee away with the shadows.[223] On Walpurgis

Night the Germans of Moravia put knives under the threshold of the

cowhouse and twigs of birch at the door and in the muck-heap to keep the

witches from the cows.[224] For the same purpose the Bohemians at this

season lay branches of gooseberry bushes, hawthorn, and wild rose-trees

on the thresholds of the cowhouses, because the witches are caught by

the thorns and can get no farther.[225] We now see why thorny trees and

bushes, whether hawthorn, buckthorn, or what not, afford protection

against witchcraft: they serve as prickly hedges through which the

witches cannot force their way. But this explanation clearly does not

apply to the mountain-ash and the birch.

[Sidenote: Influence of tree-spirits on cattle among the Wends,

Esthonians, and Circassians.] 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.[226] Some of the Esthonians believe

in a mischievous spirit called Metsik, who lives in the forest and has

the weal of the cattle in his hands. Every year a new image of him is

prepared. On an appointed day all the villagers assemble and make a

straw man, dress him in clothes, and take him to the common pasture-land

of the village. Here the figure is fastened to a high tree, round which

the people dance noisily. On almost every day of the year prayer and

sacrifice are offered to him that he may protect the cattle. Sometimes

the image of Metsik is made of a corn-sheaf and fastened to a tall tree

in the wood. The people perform strange antics before it to induce

Metsik to guard the corn and the cattle.[227] 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.[228]

[Sidenote: Tree-spirits grant offspring or an easy delivery to women.]

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.”[229]

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.[230] 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.”[231] 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.[232] Among the Kara-Kirghiz barren women

roll themselves on the ground under a solitary apple-tree, in order to

obtain offspring.[233] Some of the hill-tribes of India have a custom of

marrying the bride and bridegroom to two trees before they are married

to each other. For example, among the Mundas the bride touches with red

lead a _mahwá_-tree, clasps it in her arms, and is tied to it; and the

bridegroom goes through a like ceremony with a mango-tree.[234] The

intention of the custom may perhaps be to communicate to the

newly-wedded pair the vigorous reproductive power of the trees.[235]

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 _bårdträd_ 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.[236] 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.[237] 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.[238]

Footnote 5:

Caesar, _Bell. Gall._ vi. 25.

Footnote 6:

Julian, Fragm. 4, ed. Hertlein, pp. 608 _sq._ On the vast woods of

Germany, their coolness and shade, see also Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvi.

5.

Footnote 7:

Ch. Elton, _Origins of English History_ (London, 1882), pp. 3, 106

_sq._, 224.

Footnote 8:

W. Helbig, _Die Italiker in der Poebene_ (Leipsic, 1879), pp. 25 _sq._

Footnote 9:

H. Nissen, _Italische Landeskunde_, i. (Berlin, 1883) pp. 431 _sqq._

Footnote 10:

Livy, ix. 36-38. The Ciminian mountains (_Monte Cimino_) are still

clothed with dense woods of majestic oaks and chestnuts. Modern

writers suppose that Livy has exaggerated the terrors and difficulties

of the forest. See G. Dennis, _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, 3rd

Ed., i. 146-149.

Footnote 11:

C. Neumann und J. Partsch, _Physikalische Geographie von Griechenland_

(Breslau, 1885), pp. 357 _sqq._ I am told that the dark blue waters of

the lake of Pheneus, which still reflected the sombre pine-forests of

the surrounding mountains when I travelled in Arcadia in the bright

unforgetable autumn days of 1895, have since disappeared, the

subterranean chasms which drain this basin having been, whether

accidentally or artificially, cleared so as to allow the pent-up

waters to escape. The acres which the peasants have thereby added to

their fields will hardly console future travellers for the loss of the

watery mirror, which was one of the most beautiful, as it was one of

the rarest, scenes in the parched land of Greece.

Footnote 12:

J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_, 4th Ed., i. 53 _sqq._; O. Schrader,

_Reallexikon der indo-germanischen Altertumskunde_ (Strasburg, 1901),

_s.v._ “Tempel,” pp. 855 _sqq._

Footnote 13:

Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvi. 249 _sqq._; Maximus Tyrius, _Dissert._ viii.

8.

Footnote 14:

O. Schrader, _op. cit._ pp. 857 _sq._

Footnote 15:

Tacitus, _Germania_, 9, 39, 40, 43; _id._, _Annals_, ii. 12, iv. 73;

_id._, _Hist._ iv. 14; J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_, 4th Ed., pp.

541 _sqq._; _Bavaria Landes- und Volkeskunde des Königreichs Bayern_,

iii. 929 _sq._

Footnote 16:

J. Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_, pp. 519 _sq._; W. Mannhardt,

_Baumkultus_ (Berlin, 1875), pp. 26 _sqq._

Footnote 17:

Adam of Bremen, _Descriptio insularum Aquilonis_, 27 (Migne’s

_Patrologia Latina_, vol. cxlvi. col. 644).

Footnote 18:

L. Leger, _La Mythologie slave_ (Paris, 1901), pp. 73-75, 188-190.

Footnote 19:

Mathias Michov, “De Sarmatia Asiana atque Europea,” in Simon

Grynaeus’s _Novus Orbis regionum ac insularum veteribus incognitarum_

(Paris, 1532), pp. 455 _sq._ [wrongly numbered 445, 446]; Martin

Cromer, _De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum_ (Basel, 1568), p. 241;

Fabricius, _Livonicae historiae compendiosa series_ (_Scriptores rerum

Livonicarum_, ii. (Riga and Leipsic, 1848) p. 441).

Footnote 20:

See C. Bötticher, _Der Baumkultus der Hellenen_ (Berlin, 1856); L.

Preller, _Römische Mythologie_, 3rd. Ed., i. 105-114.

Footnote 21:

_The Classical Review_, xix. (1905) p. 331, referring to an

inscription found in Cos some years ago.

Footnote 22:

Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xv. 77; Tacitus, _Ann._ xiii. 58. The fig-tree is

represented on Roman coins and on the great marble reliefs which stand

in the Forum. See E. Babelon, _Monnaies de la République romaine_, ii.

336 _sq._; R. Lanciani, _Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome_

(London, 1897), p. 258; E. Petersen, _Vom alten Rom_ (Leipsic, 1900),

pp. 26, 27.

Footnote 23:

Plutarch, _Romulus_, 20.

Footnote 24:

K. Rhamm, “Der heidnische Gottesdienst des finnischen Stammes,”

_Globus_, lxvii. (1895) pp. 343, 348. This article is an abstract of a

Finnish book _Suomen suvun pakanillinen jumalen palvelus_, by J. Krohn

(Helsingfors, 1894).

Footnote 25:

“Heilige Haine und Bäume der Finnen,” _Globus_, lix. (1891) pp. 350

_sq._

Footnote 26:

P. S. Pallas, _Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des russischen

Reichs_ (St. Petersburg, 1771-1776), iii. 60 _sq._

Footnote 27:

Porphyry, _De abstinentia_, i. 6. This was an opinion of the Stoic and

Peripatetic philosophy.

Footnote 28:

Washington Matthews, _Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa

Indians_ (Washington, 1877), pp. 48 _sq._

Footnote 29:

L. H. Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_ (Rochester, 1851), pp. 162,

164.

Footnote 30:

J. L. Krapf, _Travels, Researches, and Missionary Labours during an

Eighteen Years’ Residence in Eastern Africa_ (London, 1860), p. 198.

Footnote 31:

Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to the author dated November 3, 1898.

Footnote 32:

J. Teit, “The Thompson Indians of British Columbia,” p. 349 (_Memoir

of the American Museum of Natural History, The Jesup North Pacific

Expedition_, vol. i. part iv.).

Footnote 33:

C. Hupe, “Over de godsdienst, zeden enz. der Dajakkers,” _Tijdschrift

voor Neêrlands Indië_, 1846 (Batavia), dl. iii. p. 158.

Footnote 34:

De la Loubere, _Du royaume de Siam_ (Amsterdam, 1691), i. 382. Compare

Mgr. Bruguière, in _Annales de l’Association de la Propagation de la

Foi_, v. (1831) p. 127.

Footnote 35:

The Buddhist conception of trees as animated often comes out in the

_Jatakas_. For examples see H. Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_, pp.

259 _sqq._; _The Jātaka_, bk. xii. No. 465, vol. iv. pp. 96 _sqq._

(English translation edited by E. B. Cowell).

Footnote 36:

J. J. M. de Groot, _The Religious System of China_, iv. (Leyden, 1901)

pp. 272 _sqq._

Footnote 37:

J. J. M. de Groot, _The Religious System of China_, v. (Leyden, 1907)

p. 663.

Footnote 38:

F. S. Krauss, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven_

(Münster i. W., 1890), p. 33.

Footnote 39:

A. B. Ellis, _The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_ (London,

1890), pp. 49 _sqq._ Compare _id._, _The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the

Gold Coast_ (London, 1887), pp. 34 _sqq._; _Missions Catholiques_, ix.

(1877) p. 71.

Footnote 40:

G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient classique: les

origines_ (Paris, 1895), pp. 121 _sq._

Footnote 41:

Merolla, “Voyage to Congo,” in Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, xvi.

236.

Footnote 42:

C. C. von der Decken, _Reisen in Ost-Afrika_ (Leipsic and Heidelberg,

1869-1871), i. 216. The writer does not describe the mode of appeasing

the tree-spirit in the case mentioned. As to the Wanika beliefs, see

above, p. 12.

Footnote 43:

Sir Harry Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_ (London, 1902), ii. 832.

Footnote 44:

J. B. L. Durand, _Voyage au Sénégal_ (Paris, 1802), p. 119.

Footnote 45:

S. J. Curtiss, _Primitive Semitic Religion To-day_ (Chicago, 1902), p.

94.

Footnote 46:

A. d’Orbigny, _Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale_ (Paris and

Strasburg, 1839-1843), ii. 157, 159 _sq._

Footnote 47:

A. W. Nieuwenhuis, _In Centraal-Borneo_ (Leyden, 1900), i. 146.

Footnote 48:

H. H. Romilly, _From my Verandah in New Guinea_ (London, 1889), p. 86.

Footnote 49:

D. C. J. Ibbetson, _Outlines of Panjab Ethnography_ (Calcutta, 1883),

p. 120.

Footnote 50:

W. von Schulenberg, “Volkskundliche Mittheilungen aus der Mark,”

_Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie

und Urgeschichte_ (1896), p. 189. Compare A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz,

_Nord-deutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche_, p. 407, § 142; E. Meier,

_Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_, p. 463, § 208; A.

Kuhn, _Sagen, Gebräuche und Märchen aus Westfalen_, ii. pp. 108 _sq._,

§§ 326, 327, p. 116, §§ 356, 358; A. Birlinger, _Volksthümliches aus

Schwaben_, i. pp. 464 _sq._, § 6; K. Bartsch, _Sagen, Märchen und

Gebräuche aus Meklenburg_, ii. 228 _sq._; W. Kolbe, _Hessische

Volks-Sitten und Gebräuche_, 2nd Ed., p. 29; R. Andree,

_Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), p. 234; R. Wuttke,

Sächsische Volkskunde 2nd Ed., (Dresden, 1901), p. 370. The custom has

been discussed by U. Jahn, _Die deutschen Opfergebräuche bei Ackerbau

und Viehzucht_ (Breslau, 1884), pp. 214-220. He comes to the

conclusion, which I cannot but regard as erroneous, that the custom

was in origin a rational precaution to keep the caterpillars from the

trees. Compare the marriage of trees, below, pp. 24 _sqq._

Footnote 51:

J. Aubrey, _Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme_ (London, 1881), p.

247.

Footnote 52:

Peter Jones, _History of the Ojebway Indians_, p. 104.

Footnote 53:

J. J. M. de Groot, _Religious System of China_, iv. 274.

Footnote 54:

A. Peter, _Volksthümliches aus Österreichisch-Schlesien_ (Troppau,

1865-67), ii. 30.

Footnote 55:

P. Wagler, _Die Eiche in alter und neuer Zeit_, ii. (Berlin, 1891) p.

56 note 1.

Footnote 56:

A. Bastian, _Indonesien_, i. 154; compare _id._, _Die Völker des

östlichen Asien_, ii. 457 _sq._, iii. 251 _sq._, iv. 42 _sq._

Footnote 57:

J. de los Reyes y Florentino, “Die religiosen Anschauungen der

Ilocanen (Luzon),” _Mittheilungen der k. k. Geograph. Gesellschaft in

Wien_, xxxi. (1888) p. 556.

Footnote 58:

F. Gardner, “Philippine (Tagalog) Superstitions,” _Journal of American

Folk-lore_, xix. (1906) p. 191. These superstitions are translated

from an old and rare work _La Pratica del ministerio_, by Padre Tomas

Ortiz (Manila, 1713).

Footnote 59:

Th. Nöldeke, “Tigre-Texte,” _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, xxiv.

(1910) p. 298, referring to E. Littmann, _Publications of the

Princeton Expedition to Abyssinia_ (Leyden, 1910).

Footnote 60:

J. Spieth, _Die Ewe-Stämme_ (Berlin, 1906), pp. 394-396.

Footnote 61:

J. H. Neumann, “De _tĕndi_ in verband met Si Dajang,” _Mededeelingen

van wege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xlviii. (1904) pp.

124 _sq._

Footnote 62:

From a letter of the Rev. J. Roscoe, written in Busoga, 21st May,

1908.

Footnote 63:

_Satapatha-Brâhmana_, translated by J. Eggeling, Part II. pp. 165

_sq._ (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxvi.); H. Oldenberg, _Die

Religion des Veda_, pp. 256 _sq._

Footnote 64:

De la Loubere, _Du royaume de Siam_ (Amsterdam, 1691), i. 383.

Footnote 65:

G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 63.

Footnote 66:

I. v. Zingerle, “Der heilige Baum bei Nauders,” _Zeitschrift für

deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde_, iv. (1859), pp. 33 _sqq._

According to Lucan (_Pharsal._ iii. 429-431), the soldiers whom Caesar

ordered to cut down the sacred oak-grove of the Druids at Marseilles

believed that the axes would rebound from the trees and wound

themselves.

Footnote 67:

W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, pp. 198 _sq._ As to the durian-tree and

its fruit, see A. R. Wallace, _The Malay Archipelago_ 6th Ed.,

(London, 1877), pp. 74 _sqq._

Footnote 68:

W. G. Aston, _Shinto_ (London, 1905), p. 165.

Footnote 69:

F. S. Krauss, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven_, p.

34; A. Strausz, _Die Bulgaren_ (Leipsic, 1898), p. 352. Compare R. F.

Kaindl, “Aus der Volksüberlieferung der Bojken,” _Globus_, lxxix.

(1901) p. 152.

Footnote 70:

G. Pitrè, _Spettacoli e feste popolari_ (Palermo, 1881), p. 221;

_id._, _Usi e costumi, credenze e pregiudizi del popolo siciliano_,

iii. (Palermo, 1889) p. 111; G. Vuillier, “Chez les magiciens et les

sorciers de la Corrèze,” _Tour du monde_, N.S. v. (1899) p. 512.

Footnote 71:

M. Tchéraz, “Notes sur la mythologie Arménienne,” _Transactions of the

Ninth International Congress of Orientalists_ (London, 1893), ii. 827.

Compare M. Abeghian, _Der armenische Volksglaube_ (Leipsic, 1899), p.

60.

Footnote 72:

G. Finamore, _Credenze, usi, e costumi abruzzesi_ (Palermo, 1890), pp.

162 _sq._

Footnote 73:

Georgeakis et Pineau, _Folk-lore de Lesbos_ (Paris, 1894), p. 354.

Footnote 74:

Boecler-Kreutzwald, _Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche, Weisen und

Gewohnheiten_ (St. Petersburg, 1854), p. 134.

Footnote 75:

M. J. van Baarda, “Fabelen, Verhalen, en Overleveringen der

Galelareezen,” _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van

Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlv. (1895) p. 511.

Footnote 76:

A. G. Vorderman, “Planten-animisme op Java,” _Teysmannia_, No. 2,

1896, pp. 59 _sq._; _Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie_, ix.

(1896) p. 175.

Footnote 77:

A. G. Vorderman, _op. cit._ p. 60; _Internationales Archiv für

Ethnographie_, ix. (1896) p. 176.

Footnote 78:

A. G. Vorderman, _op. cit._ pp. 61-63.

Footnote 79:

A. de Humboldt, _Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau

Continent_, ii. (Paris, 1819) pp. 369 _sq._, 429 _sq._

Footnote 80:

Elsdon Best, “Maori Nomenclature,” _Journal of the Anthropological

Institute_, xxxii. (1902) p. 197.

Footnote 81:

Herodotus, i. 193; Theophrastus, _Historia plantarum_, ii. 8. 4;

Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xiii. 31, 34 _sq._ In this passage Pliny states

that naturalists distinguished the sexes of all trees and plants. On

Assyrian monuments a winged figure is often represented holding an

object which looks like a pine-cone to a palm-tree. The scene has been

ingeniously and with great probability explained by Professor E. B.

Tylor as the artificial fertilisation of the date-palm by means of the

male inflorescence. See his paper in _Proceedings of the Society of

Biblical Archaeology_, xii. (1890) pp. 383-393. On the artificial

fertilisation of the date-palm, see C. Ritter, _Vergleichende Erdkunde

von Arabien_ (Berlin, 1847), ii. 811, 827 _sq._

Footnote 82:

D. Chwolsohn, _Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus_ (St. Petersburg, 1856),

ii. 36, 251. Mohammed forbade the artificial fertilisation of the

palm, probably because of the superstitions attaching to the ceremony.

But he had to acknowledge his mistake. See D. S. Margoliouth,

_Mohammed and the Rise of Islam_, p. 230 (a passage pointed out to me

by Dr. A. W. Verrall).

Footnote 83:

Sir W. H. Sleeman, _Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official_

(Westminster, 1893), i. 38 _sq._; compare _Census of India, 1901_,

vol. xiii., _Central Provinces_, part i. p. 92.

Footnote 84:

_Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, lxxii., part iii.

(Calcutta, 1904) p. 42.

Footnote 85:

J. A. Dubois, _Mœurs, institutions et cérémonies des peuples de

l’Inde_ (Paris, 1825), ii. 448 _sq._; Monier Williams, _Religious Life

and Thought in India_, pp. 333-335; W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and

Folklore of Northern India_ (Westminster, 1896), ii. 110 _sq._

According to another account, it is Vishnu, not Krishna, to whom the

holy plant is annually married in every pious Hindoo family. See

_Census of India, 1901_, vol. xviii., _Baroda_, p. 125.

Footnote 86:

Sir Henry M. Elliot, _Memoirs on the History, Folklore, and

Distribution of the Races of the North-western Provinces of India_,

edited by J. Beames (London, 1869), i. 233 _sq._

Footnote 87:

W. Crooke, _op. cit._ i. 49.

Footnote 88:

Sir W. H. Sleeman, _Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official_

(Westminster, 1893), i. 147-149, 175. The _Salagrama_ is commonly

perforated in one or more places by worms or, as the Hindoos believe,

by the legendary insect Vajrakita or by Vishnu himself. The value of

the fossil shell depends on its colour, and the number of its

convolutions and holes. The black are prized as gracious embodiments

of Vishnu; the violet are shunned as dangerous avatars of the god. He

who possesses a black _Salagrama_ keeps it wrapped in white linen,

washes and adores it daily. A draught of the water in which the shell

has been washed is supposed to purge away all sin and to secure the

temporal and eternal welfare of the drinker. These fossils are found

in Nepaul, in the upper course of the river Gandaka, a northern

tributary of the Ganges. Hence the district goes by the name of

Salagrami, and is highly esteemed for its sanctity; a visit to it

confers great merit on a man. See Sonnerat, _Voyage aux Indes

Orientales et à la Chine_ (Paris, 1782), i. 173 _sq._; J. A. Dubois,

_Mœurs, institutions et cérémonies des peuples de l’Indie_ (Paris,

1825), ii. 446-448; Sir W. H. Sleeman, _op. cit._ i. 148 _sq._, with

the editor’s notes; Monier Williams, _Religious Thought and Life in

India_, pp. 69 _sq._; G. Watt, _Dictionary of the Economic Products of

India_, vi. Part II. (London and Calcutta, 1893) p. 384; W. Crooke,

_op. cit._ ii. 164 _sq._; _Indian Antiquary_, xxv. (1896) p. 146; G.

Oppert, _On the Original Inhabitants of Bharatavarsa or India_

(Westminster and Leipsic, 1893), pp. 337-359; _id._, “Note sur les

Sālagrāmas,” _Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et

Belles-Lettres_ (Paris, 1900), pp. 472-485. The shell derives its name

of ammonite from its resemblance to a ram’s horn, recalling the

ram-god Ammon.

Footnote 89:

_Die gestriegelte Rockenphilosophie_ (Chemnitz, 1759), pp. 239 _sq._;

U. Jahn, _Die deutschen Opfergebräuche bei Ackerbau und Viehzucht_,

pp. 214 _sqq._ See above, p. 17.

Footnote 90:

Van Schmid, “Aanteekeningen nopens de zeden, gewoonten en gebruiken,

etc., der bevolking van de eilanden Saparoea, etc.” _Tijdschrift voor

Neêrlands Indië_, 1843 (Batavia), dl. ii. p. 605; A. Bastian,

_Indonesien_, i. 156.

Footnote 91:

G. W. W. C. Baron van Hoëvell, _Ambon en meer bepaaldelijk de

Oeliasers_ (Dordrecht, 1875), p. 62.

Footnote 92:

G. A. Wilken, “Het animisme bij de volken van het Indischen archipel,”

_De Indische Gids_, June 1884, p. 958; _id._, _Handleiding voor de

vergelijkende Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indië_ (Leyden, 1893), pp.

549 _sq._

Footnote 93:

E. L. M. Kühr, “Schetsen uit Borneo’s Westerafdeeling,” _Bijdragen tot

de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, xlvii. (1897)

pp. 58 _sq._

Footnote 94:

A. C. Kruijt, “Eenige ethnografische aanteekeningen omtrent de

Toboengkoe en de Tomori,” _Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche

Zendelinggenootschap_, xliv. (1900) p. 221.

Footnote 95:

D. Grangeon, “Les Cham et leur superstitions,” _Missions Catholiques_,

xxviii. (1896) p. 83.

Footnote 96:

_Indian Antiquary_, i. (1872) p. 170.

Footnote 97:

A. C. Kruijt, “Een en ander aangaande het geestelijk en

maatschappelijk leven van den Poso-Alfoer,” _Mededeelingen van wege

het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xxxix. (1895) pp. 22, 138.

Footnote 98:

_Id._, “Eenige ethnografische aanteekeningen omtrent de Toboengkoe en

Tomori,” _ib._, xliv. (1900) p. 227.

Footnote 99:

C. Snouck Hurgronje, _Het Gajōland en zijne Bewoners_ (Batavia, 1903),

pp. 344, 345.

Footnote 100:

S. Gason, “The Dieyerie Tribe,” _Native Tribes of South Australia_, p.

280; A. W. Howitt, “The Dieri and other kindred Tribes of Central

Australia,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xx. (1891) p.

89.

Footnote 101:

F. Blumentritt, “Der Ahnencultus und die religiöse Anschauungen der

Malaien des Philippinen-Archipels,” _Mittheilungen der Wiener Geogr.

Gesellschaft_ (1882), pp. 159 _sq._; _id._, _Versuch einer

Ethnographie der Philippinen_ (Gotha, 1882), pp. 13, 29 (_Petermann’s

Mittheilungen, Ergänzungsheft_, No. 67); J. Mallat, _Les Philippines_

(Paris, 1846), i. 63 _sq._

Footnote 102:

A. Schadenberg, “Beiträge zur Kenntnis der im Innern Nordluzons

lebenden Stämme,” _Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für

Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte_ (1888), p. 40.

Footnote 103:

F. Grabowsky, “Der Tod, etc., bei den Dajaken,” _Internationales

Archiv für Ethnographie_, ii. (1889) p. 181.

Footnote 104:

H. Low, _Sarawak_ (London, 1848), p. 264.

Footnote 105:

Mrs. Bishop, _Korea and her Neighbours_ (London, 1898), i. 106 _sq._

Footnote 106:

J. J. M. de Groot, _Religious System of China_, ii. 462 _sqq._, iv.

277 _sq._

Footnote 107:

_La Mission lyonnaise d’exploration commerciale en Chine 1895-1897_

(Lyons, 1898), p. 361.

Footnote 108:

“Der Muata Cazembe und die Völkerstämme der Maravis, Chevas, Muembas,

Lundas und andere von Süd-Afrika,” _Zeitschrift für allgemeine

Erdkunde_, vi. (1856) p. 273.

Footnote 109:

Major A. G. Leonard, _The Lower Niger and its Tribes_ (London, 1906),

pp. 298 _sqq._

Footnote 110:

Ch. Partridge, _Cross River Natives_ (London, 1905), pp. 272 _sq._

Footnote 111:

Ch. Partridge, _op. cit._ pp. 5, 194, 205 _sq._

Footnote 112:

F. S. A. de Clercq, “De Westen Noordkust van Nederlandsch

Nieuw-Guinea,” _Tijdschrift van het kon. Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig

Genootschap_, Tweede Serie, x. (1893) p. 199.

Footnote 113:

“Shamanism in Siberia and European Russia,” _Journal of the

Anthropological Institute_, xxiv. (1895) p. 136.

Footnote 114:

Fr. Boas, in _Sixth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada_, p.

28 (separate reprint from the _Report of the British Association for

1890_).

Footnote 115:

F. S. Krauss, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven_, p.

36.

Footnote 116:

F. S. Krauss, _loc. cit._

Footnote 117:

_Aeneid_, iii. 22 _sqq._

Footnote 118:

Philostratus, _Imagines_, ii. 29.

Footnote 119:

A. Landes, “Contes et légendes annamites,” No. 9, in _Cochinchine

française: excursions et reconnaissances_, No. 20 (Saigon, 1885), p.

310.

Footnote 120:

A. B. Ellis, _The Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West

Africa_, pp. 134-136.

Footnote 121:

B. C. A. J. van Dinter, “Eenige geographische en ethnographische

aanteekeningen betreffende het eiland Siaoe,” _Tijdschrift voor

Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xli. (1899) pp. 379 _sq._

Footnote 122:

E. Modigliani, _Un Viaggio a Nías_ (Milan, 1890), p. 629.

Footnote 123:

O. Baumann, _Usambara und seine Nachbargebiete_ (Berlin, 1891), pp. 57

_sq._

Footnote 124:

Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 162,

330 _sq._

Footnote 125:

Ph. Paulitschke, _Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas: Die geistige Cultur

der Danâkil, Galla und Somâl_ (Berlin, 1896), pp. 34 _sq._ On the

Galla worship of trees, see further Mgr. Massaja, in _Annales de la

Propagation de la Foi_, xxx. (1858) p. 50; Coulbeaux, “Au pays de

Menelik,” _Missions Catholiques_, xxx. (1898) p. 418.

Footnote 126:

J. Kubary, “Die Religion der Pelauer,” in A. Bastian’s _Allerlei aus

Volks- und Menschenkunde_, i. 52; _id._, _Beiträge zur Kenntnis des

Karolinen Archipels_, iii. (Leyden, 1895) p. 228.

Footnote 127:

A. B. Ellis, _The Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_, p. 115.

Footnote 128:

A. C. Kruijt, “Een en ander aangaande het geestelijk en

maatschappelijk leven van den Poso-Alfoer,” _Mededeelingen van wege

het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap_, xl. (1896) pp. 28 _sq._

Footnote 129:

A. C. Kruijt, “Eenige ethnografische aanteekeningen omtrent de

Toboengkoe en de Tomori,” _Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche

Zendelinggenootschap_, xliv. (1900) pp. 220 _sq._

Footnote 130:

A. C. Kruijt, _op. cit._ p. 242.

Footnote 131:

J. Habbema, “Bijgeloof in de Preanger-Regentschappen,” _Bijdragen tot

de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië_, xli. (1900) pp.

113, 115.

Footnote 132:

G. Heijmering, “Zeden en Gewoonten op het eiland Rottie,” _Tijdschrift

voor Neêrlands Indië_ (1844), dl. i. p. 358.

Footnote 133:

C. Snouck Hurgronje, _Het Gajōland en zijne Bewoners_ (Batavia, 1903),

p. 351.

Footnote 134:

Th. A. L. Heyting, “Beschrijving der onder-afdeeling Groot-mandeling

en Batang-natal,” _Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig

Genootschap_, Tweede Serie, xiv. (1897) pp. 289 _sq._

Footnote 135:

F. Blumentritt, _Versuch einer Ethnographie der Philippinen_ (Gotha,

1882), p. 13 (_Petermanns Mittheilungen, Ergänzungheft_, No. 67). See

above, pp. 18 _sq._

Footnote 136:

Crossland, quoted by H. Ling Roth, _The Natives of Sarawak and British

North Borneo_, i. 286; compare _Journal of the Anthropological

Institute_, xxi. (1892) p. 114.

Footnote 137:

“Lettre du curé de Santiago Tepehuacan à son évêque,” _Bulletin de la

Société de Géographie_ (Paris), IIme. Série, ii. (1834) pp. 182 _sq._

Footnote 138:

J. T. Bent, _The Cyclades_, p. 37.