THE GOD AND THE TREE
When we examine more closely the spiritual beings who have been thought
to haunt or inhabit vegetation, we find that they fall more or less
distinctly into two classes—into tree-gods on the one hand, and on the
other into the various tree-demons, wood-spirits, dryads, elves, jinns,
and fabulous monsters common to the mythology of all countries. There
is, perhaps, no absolutely definite line of demarcation between the two
classes, for primitive thought does not deal in sharp definitions. But
the division, besides being convenient for our present purpose, is a
vital one. For a god is an individual spirit who enters into stated
relations with man, is mostly if not invariably regarded as akin to his
worshippers, and is presumably their friend, ally, and protector.
Whereas the demon is an independent and, as a rule, not individualised
spirit, without human kinship, and for the most part unfriendly to man.
The god is to be revered, approached and called upon by name; the demon,
as a rule, to be dreaded and shunned. The present chapter will be
devoted to the belief in the tree-inhabiting god.
The conception of an ubiquitous, unconditioned spirit is entirely
foreign to primitive thought. All the gods of antiquity were subject to
physical limitations. Those even of Greece and Rome were by no means
independent of a material environment. There was always some holy place
or sanctuary, some grove, tree, stone, or fountain, or later on some
temple or image, wherein the god was assumed to dwell, and through which
he had to be approached. To Moses Jehovah is “He that dwelt in the
bush,”[52] and centuries later Cyrus, while admitting that the Lord of
Israel had made him king of the whole world, yet speaks of Him as “the
Lord that dwelleth in Jerusalem.”[53] Very frequently, especially in
early times, this home or haunt of the god was a tree; his ceremonial
worship was conducted beneath its shadow, and the offerings of his
worshippers were hung upon its branches, or placed at its foot, or upon
a table by its side, and assumed thereby to have reached the god. Thus
the sacred sycamores of Egypt were believed to be actually inhabited by
Hāthor, Nu̔ît, Selkît, Nît, or some other deity, and were worshipped and
presented with offerings as such. The vignettes in the _Book of the
Dead_ demonstrate this belief unmistakably. They frequently depict the
soul on its journey to the next world coming to one of these miraculous
sycamores on the edge of the terrible desert before it, and receiving
from the goddess of the tree a supply of bread, fruit, or water, the
acceptance of which made it the guest of the deity and prevented it from
retracing its steps without her express permission. “O, sycamore of the
Goddess Nu̔ît,” begins one of the chapters in the _Book of the Dead_,
“let there be given to me the water which is in thee.” As a rule in the
vignettes the bust of the goddess is represented as appearing from
amidst the sheltering foliage, but sometimes only her arm is seen
emerging from the leaves with a libation-bowl in the hand. The
conception is illustrated still more clearly on an ancient sarcophagus
in the Marseilles Museum, where the trunk from which the branches spread
is represented as the actual body of the deity.[54]
[Illustration: Fig. 10.—The goddess Nu̔ît in her sacred sycamore
bestowing the bread and water of the next world.(Maspero, Dawn of
Civilisation.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 11.—Sacred tree of Dionysus, with a statue of the
god and offerings.(Bötticher, Fig. 24.)]
As man’s conception of the deity became more definitely anthropomorphic
on the one hand and less local on the other, this primitive
representation of the god in the tree underwent a change in two
corresponding directions. In the one case an attempt was made to express
more clearly the manlike form of the god; the tree was dressed or carved
in human semblance, or a mask or statue of the god was hung upon or
placed beside it. In the other case, as the god widened his territory or
absorbed other local gods he became associated with all trees of a
certain class, and was assumed to dwell not in a particular tree, but in
a particular kind of tree, which thenceforward became sacred to and
symbolical of him. This latter idea received special development in the
religions of Greece and Rome. But in the early history of both those
countries cases occur in which a god was worshipped in an individual
tree. At Dodona, which was perhaps the most ancient of all Greek
sanctuaries, Zeus was approached as immanent in his sacred oak, and
legendary afterthought explained the primitive ritual by relating that
the first oak sprang from the blood of a Titan slain while invading the
abode of the god, who thereupon chose it as his own peculiar tree.
Again, in ancient Rome, according to Livy, Jupiter was originally
worshipped in the form of a lofty oak-tree which grew upon the Capitol.
The same was probably true of other gods at their first appearance.
Amongst the Greeks, indeed, the tree was the earliest symbol or ἄγαλµα
of the god, and as such is frequently represented on ancient vases,
marble tablets, silver vessels, and wall-paintings. Indeed, the solitary
tree standing in Attic fields and worshipped as the sacred habitation of
a god was in all probability the earliest Greek temple, the forerunner
of those marvellous edifices which have aroused the admiration of every
subsequent age; whilst the elaborate worship of which those temples
became the home was presumably based upon a ceremonial originally
connected with the worship of the tree.
[Illustration: Fig. 12.—Sacred pine of Silvanus, with a bust of the god,
and votive gifts represented by a bale of merchandise and a Mercury’s
staff.(Bötticher, Fig 18.)]
According to Mr. Farnell, the latest writer on the subject, the chief
gods of the Greeks were in their origin deities of vegetation, the
special attributes which we associate with them being subsequent
accretions. The pre-Hellenic Cronos gave his name to an Attic
harvest-festival held in July, and his ancient emblem was the
sickle.[55] Zeus, besides being the oak-god of Dodona, was worshipped in
Attica as a god of agriculture and honoured with cereal offerings.[56]
Artemis was not primarily a goddess of chastity, nor a moon-goddess, nor
the twin-sister of Apollo, but an independent divinity, closely related
to the wood-nymphs, and connected with water and with wild vegetation
and forest beasts. She was worshipped in Arcadia as the goddess of the
nut-tree and the cedar, and in Laconia as the goddess of the laurel and
the myrtle. Her idol at Sparta was said to have been found in a willow
brake, bound round with withies. At Teuthea in Achaea she was worshipped
as the goddess of the woodland pasture, and at Cnidus as the nurturer of
the hyacinth.[57] In the legend of the colonisation of Boiae she was
represented as embodied in a hare which suddenly disappeared in a
myrtle-tree.[58] But her character as a tree-goddess comes out still
more clearly in the cult of the “hanging Artemis” at Kaphyae in
Arcadia,[59] which no doubt grew out of the primitive custom of
suspending a mask or image of the vegetation spirit to the sacred tree.
The association of Hera with tree-worship is less pronounced. She was
said to have been born under a willow-tree at Samos, and her worship in
that island was characterised by a yearly ceremony in which her
priestess secreted her idol in a willow brake, where it was subsequently
rediscovered and honoured with an oblation of cakes.[60] In Argos she
was worshipped as the deity who gave the fruits of the earth, and as
such was represented with a pomegranate in her hand. It is also worthy
of note that the familiar symbol of a conventionalised tree between two
griffins appears on the stephanos or coronet of the goddess on coins of
Croton of the fourth century, and of certain South Italian cities, as
well as on a colossal bust now at Venice, which, like the head on the
coins, was presumably copied from the temple-image at Croton.[61]
Aphrodite was not a primitive Greek deity, but her connection with
vegetative life is abundantly clear. She was, in fact, but a Hellenised
variant of the great Oriental goddess, worshipped in different parts as
Istar, Astarte, Cybele, etc., who was essentially a divinity of
vegetation.[62]
This primitive connection of the gods of Greece with vegetative life was
lost sight of in their later developments. Even at the date of the
Homeric poems the more advanced of the Greeks had evidently arrived at
“a highly developed structure of religious thought, showing us clear-cut
personal divinities with ethical and spiritual attributes.”[63] But the
older and cruder ideas of the nature of the gods left a persistent trace
in the ritual with which they were worshipped, as well as in the designs
of the artists who reflected the popular traditions. Thus the ancient
custom of burning incense before the tree, decking it with consecrated
fillets, and honouring it with burnt offerings, survived long after the
belief of which it was the natural development had decayed. A sculpture
preserved in the Berlin Museum represents the holy pine-tree of Pan
adorned with wreaths and fillets. An image of Pan is near, and offerings
are being brought to an altar placed beneath it. Again, Theocritus
describes how at the consecration of Helen’s plane-tree at Sparta, the
choir of Lacedaemonian maidens hung consecrated wreaths of lotus flowers
upon the tree, anointed it with costly spikenard, and attached to it the
dedicatory placard: “Honour me, all ye that pass by, for I am Helen’s
tree.”[64]
[Illustration: Fig. 13.—Fruit-tree dressed as Dionysus.(Bötticher, Fig.
44.)]
The practice of giving the tree a human semblance, by clothing it in
garments or carving its stump in human form, was the natural result of
this worship amongst an artistic race, groping its way towards a
concrete expression of its ideas. It represented the crude strivings of
a people who, in their attempts to create gods in their own image,
eventually produced an unsurpassable ideal of human grace and beauty.
From the rudely carved tree-stump arose in due time the Hermes of
Praxiteles. Bötticher reproduces several ancient designs in which the
trunk of a tree is dressed as Dionysus. In one of these a mask is
fastened at the top of the trunk in such a way that the branches appear
to grow from the head of the god, and the trunk itself is clothed with a
long garment; a table, or altar, loaded with gifts, stands beside
it.[65]
In other cases, probably where the worshipped tree had died, its trunk
or branches were rudely carved into an image of the god, and either left
_in situ_, or hewn down and placed near the temple or, later, in the
very temple itself. Both Pausanias and Pliny state that the oldest
images of the gods were made of wood, and several Latin authors refer to
the custom of thus carving the branches of auspicious trees (_felicium
arborum_) as prevalent in primitive times amongst the Greeks.[66] The
ἄγαλµα or emblem of Aphrodite, dedicated by Pelops, was wrought out of a
fresh verdant myrtle-tree. At Samos a board was the emblem of Hera; two
wooden stocks joined together by a cross-piece was the sign of the
twin-brethren at Sparta, and a wooden column encircled with ivy was
consecrated to Dionysus at Thebes.[67]
It may be fairly assumed that in cases such as these the worshippers
believed that the dead piece of wood retained some at least of the power
originally attributed to the spirit dwelling in the living tree. Their
idolatry was but a childish deduction from an ancient and deeply-rooted
theology. The same may be said for the wood-cutter, derided in the
Apocrypha, who, “taking a crooked piece of wood and full of knots,
carveth it with the diligence of his idleness, and shapeth it by the
skill of his indolence; then he giveth it the semblance of the image of
a man, smearing it with vermilion and with paint colouring it red; and
having made for it a chamber worthy of it, he setteth it in a wall,
making it fast with iron.”[68] Side by side with this foolish
wood-cutter, who “for life beseecheth that which is dead,” may be placed
the Sicilian peasant whom Theocritus represents as offering sacrifice to
a carved Pan. “When thou hast turned yonder lane, goatherd, where the
oak-trees are, thou wilt find an image of fig-tree wood newly carven;
three legged it is, the bark still covers it, and it is earless withal.
A right holy precinct runs round it, and a ceaseless stream that falleth
from the rocks on every side is green with laurels and myrtles and
fragrant cypress. And all around the place that child of the grape, the
vine, doth flourish with its tendrils, and the merles in spring with
their sweet songs pour forth their woodnotes wild, and the brown
nightingales reply with their complaints, pouring from their bills their
honey sweet song.”[69]
This crude worship of the god in the anthropomorphised tree lingered on
amongst the peasantry side by side with the splendid temple ritual, even
into days when the revelation of a Deity who filled all time and space,
and was worshipped in temples not made with hands, was rapidly
undermining the pagan worship of the cities. Maximus Tyrius, who lived
in the second century A.D., and counted among his most diligent pupils
the great Marcus Aurelius, relates how even in his day at the festival
of Dionysus every peasant selected the most beautiful tree in his garden
to convert it into an image of the god and to worship it.[70] And
Apuleius, another writer of the same period, bears similar testimony.
“It is the custom,” he says, “of pious travellers, when their way passes
a grove or holy place, that they offer up a prayer for the fulfilment of
their wishes, offer gifts and remain there a time; so I, when I set foot
in that most sacred city, although in haste, must crave for a pardon,
offer a prayer and moderate my haste. For never was traveller more
justified in making a religious pause, when he perchance shall have come
upon a flower-wreathed altar, a grotto covered with boughs, an oak
decorated with many horns, or a beech-tree with skins hung to it, a
little sacred hill fenced around, or a _tree trunk hewn as an image_
(_truncus dolamine effigatus_).”[71]
Forms of the Tât or Didû, the emblem of Osiris.
(Maspero, _op. cit._)
[Illustration: Fig. 14.]
[Illustration: Fig. 15.]
This custom of carving a tree into the semblance of a god, and
subsequently worshipping it as his sanctuary or symbol, was current in
many parts of the world. The chief idol form of Osiris, the Didû or Tât,
is believed by Maspero to have originated as a simple tree-trunk
disbranched and planted in the ground.[72] Usually it is represented
with a grotesque face, beneath four superimposed capitals, with a
necklace round its neck, a long robe hiding the base of the column in
its folds, and the whole surmounted by the familiar Osirian emblems.
Again, it is said to have been a practice amongst the Druids, when an
oak died to strip off its bark and shape it into a pillar, pyramid, or
cross, and continue to worship it as an emblem of the god.[73] The cross
especially was a favourite form, and any oak with two principal branches
forming a cross with the main stem was consecrated by a sacred
inscription, and from that time forward regarded with particular
reverence.
The same custom prevailed in India. In the seventeenth century there
existed near Surat a sacred banian-tree, supposed to be 3000 years old,
which the Hindus would never cut or touch with steel for fear of
offending the god concealed in its foliage. They made pilgrimages to it
and honoured it with religious ceremonies. On its trunk at a little
distance from the ground a head had been roughly carved, painted in gay
colours, and furnished with gold and silver eyes. This simulacrum was
constantly adorned with fresh foliage and flowers, the withered leaves
which they replaced being distributed amongst the pilgrims as pious
souvenirs.[74]
It was predominantly, though by no means exclusively, a Greek
development to associate a particular god with a particular variety of
tree. The oak, excelling all others in majestic strength and inherent
vigour, became the emblem and embodiment of Zeus. The connection arose
in all probability from the primitive worship of the Pelasgic Zeus in
the oak grove of Dodona, but in classical times it was accepted
throughout Greece. On coins and in other works of art the god is
frequently represented as crowned with oak leaves, or as standing or
sitting beside an oak-tree.[75] To have partaken of the acorns of Zeus
was a vernacular expression for having acquired wisdom and knowledge.
This especial sanctity of the oak as the tree of the father of the gods
passed into Italy, and Virgil speaks of it as—
Jove’s own tree
That holds the world in awful sovereignty.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.—Apollo on his sacred tripod, a laurel branch in
his hand.(From a coin, probably of Delphi.)]
More sacred even than the oak to Zeus was the laurel to Apollo. No
sanctuary of his was complete without it; none could be founded where
the soil was unfavourable to its growth. No worshipper could share in
his rites who had not a crown of laurel on his head or a branch in his
hand. As endowed with the power of the god, who was at once the prophet,
poet, redeemer, and protector of his people, the laurel assumed an
important and many-sided rôle in ceremonial symbolism.[76] The staff of
laurel in the hand of the reciting poet was assumed to assist his
inspiration, in the hand of the prophet or diviner to help him to see
hidden things. Thus the use of the laurel played an essential part in
the oracular ceremonial of Delphi. Everywhere, in short, the bearing of
the laurel bough was the surest way to the god’s protection and favour.
The conception was slow to die. Clement, writing about 200 A.D., still
finds the warning necessary that “one must not hope to obtain
reconciliation with God by means of laurel branches adorned with red and
white ribbons.”[77]
By an easy transition the laurel became sacred also to Aesculapius. As
the source at once of a valuable remedy and a deadly poison, it was held
in high esteem by Greek physicians. It was popularly believed that
spirits could be cast out by its means, and it was usual to affix a
laurel bough over the doorway in cases of serious illness, in order to
avert death and keep evil spirits at bay.[78]
The ceremonial use of the laurel passed from Greece into Italy. When the
Sibylline books were consulted at Rome, the laurel of prophecy always
adorned the chair of the priest.[79] Victors were crowned with laurel,
and in Roman triumphs the soldiers decked their spears and helmets with
its leaves.
The tree of Aphrodite was the myrtle.[80] It was held to have the power
both of creating and of perpetuating love, and hence from the earliest
times was used in marriage ceremonies. In the Eleusinian mysteries the
initiates crowned themselves with the oak leaves of Zeus and the myrtle
of Aphrodite. The Graces, her attendants, were represented as wearing
myrtle chaplets, and her worshippers crowned themselves with myrtle
sprays. At Rome Venus was worshipped under the name of Myrtea in her
temple at the foot of the Aventine. The apple-tree held a subsidiary but
yet important place in the cult of Aphrodite. Its fruit was regarded as
an appropriate offering to her and, according to Theocritus, played its
part in love games.[81] The apples of Atalanta had no doubt a symbolical
significance.
[Illustration: Fig. 17.—Coin of Athens, of the age of Pericles or
earlier, showing olive spray.]
[Illustration: Fig. 18.—Coin of Athens, third century B.C.]
Athena also had her special tree. According to mythology she sprang
fully armed from the head of Zeus, but research into the origins of the
gods makes it much more probable that her true pedigree was from the
olive, which grew wild upon the Athenian Acropolis, the chief seat of
her worship. Mr. M‘Lennan even inclined to regard the olive as
originally the totem of the Athenians.[82] At any rate their connection
with that tree dates from an ancient time. “The produce of the
olive-tree had an almost religious value for the men of Attica, and the
physical side of Greek civilisation much depended on it.”[83] From the
era of Pericles onwards the coins of Athens were stamped with the
olive-branch, amongst other usual accompaniments of the tutelary
goddess. Every sanctuary and temple of Athena had its sacred olive-tree,
which was regarded as the symbol of the divine peace and protection.
Naturally a legend arose to explain the connection. Athena and Poseidon,
being at variance as to which of them should name the newly-founded city
of Athens, referred the question to the gods, who in general assembly
decreed the privilege to that claimant who should give the most useful
present to the inhabitants of earth. Poseidon struck the ground with his
trident and a horse sprang forth. But Athena “revealed the spray of the
gray-green olive, a divine crown and glory for bright Athens.”[84] And
the gods decided that the olive, as the emblem of peace, was a higher
gift to man than the horse, which was the symbol of war. So Athena named
the city after herself and became its protectress. This myth, which,
according to Mr. Farnell, is one of the very few creation-myths in Greek
folk-lore, was a favourite subject in art, and is frequently represented
on late Attic coins.[85]
Other gods had their sacred trees: Dionysus, the vine; Dis and
Persephone, the poplar, which was supposed to grow on the banks of
Acheron. The cypress, called by Greeks and Romans alike the “mournful
tree,” was also sacred to the rulers of the underworld, and to their
associates, the Fates and Furies. As such it was customary to plant it
by the grave, and, in the event of a death, to place it either before
the house or in the vestibule, in order to warn those about to perform a
sacred rite against entering a place polluted by a dead body.[86]
In regard to the number of trees which they held sacred the Semitic
nations rivalled the Greeks. They venerated “the pines and cedars of
Lebanon, the evergreen oaks of the Palestinian hills, the tamarisks of
the Syrian jungles, the acacias of the Arabian wadies,” besides such
cultivated trees as the palm, the olive, and the vine. But there is no
clear evidence to prove that they ever coupled a particular species of
tree with a particular god. In Phoenicia the cypress was sacred to
Astarte, but it was equally connected with the god Melcarth, who was
believed to have planted the cypress-trees at Daphne. “If a tree
belonged to a particular deity, it was not because it was of a
particular species, but because it was the natural wood of the place
where the god was worshipped.”[87] It is true that the Chaldaeans
regarded the cedar as the special tree of the god Ea, but the
association was probably borrowed, like the god himself, from the
non-Semitic Accadians, while the connection of the Nabataean god,
Dusares, with the vine may be traced to Hellenic influence.
Outside the Semitic area individual gods are often found, as in Greece,
linked with particular kinds of trees. In Persia the cypress was the
sacred tree of the god Mithra, while in Egypt the acacia was intimately
associated with Osiris. On an ancient sarcophagus an acacia is
represented with the device, “Osiris shoots up.”[88] And in mortuary
pictures the god is sometimes represented as a mummy covered with a tree
or with growing plants. In both cases the idea of life arising out of
death is probably implied.
[Illustration: Fig. 19.—The Bodhi-tree of Kanaka Muni (Ficus
glomerata).(The Stûpa of Bharhut, by Major-General Cunningham, Plate
xxiv. 4.)]
In India each Buddha was associated with his own bodhi-tree or tree of
wisdom. The trumpet-flower, the sâl-tree, the acacia, the pippala, and
the banian all belonged to different Buddhas, and are so depicted on the
Stûpa of Bharhut. Here in the case of the earliest of the Buddhas whose
bodhi-tree has been found, the Buddha Vipasin, the particular tree
represented is the _pâtali_ or trumpet-flower. In front of it is placed
“a throne or bodhi-manda, before which two people are kneeling, whilst a
crowd of others with joined hands are standing on each side of the
tree.”[89] The Buddha Gautama’s tree was the pippala or _Ficus
religiosa_, which is much more elaborately treated at Bharhut than any
other bodhi-tree. In the sculpture representing its adoration, “the
trunk is entirely surrounded by an open pillared building with an upper
story, ornamented with niches containing umbrellas. Two umbrellas are
placed in the top of the tree, and numerous streamers are hanging from
the branches. In the two upper corners are flying figures with wings,
bringing offerings of garlands. On each side there is a male figure
raising a garland in his right hand and holding the tip of his tongue
with the thumb and forefinger of his left. In the lower story of the
building is a throne in front of a tree. Two figures, male and female,
are kneeling before the throne, while a female figure is standing to the
left, and a Nâga Raja with his hands crossed on his breast to the right.
This figure is distinguished by a triple serpent crest. To the extreme
right there is an isolated pillar surmounted by an elephant holding out
a garland in his trunk. On the domed roof of the building is inscribed,
‘The Bodhi-Tree of the Buddha Sâkya Muni.’”[90] In another sculpture
elephants old and young are paying their devotions to a banian-tree,
while others are bringing garlands to hang on its branches. The
important bearing of these sculptures on the history of tree-worship is
obvious.
[Illustration: Fig. 20.—Wild elephants paying their devotions to the
sacred banian of Kâsyapa Buddha.(The Stûpa of Bharhut, Plate xv.)]
It may be noted in passing that neither in the many sculptured scenes at
Bharhut and Buddha Gaya, all of which are contemporary with Asoka
(_circa_ 250 B.C.), nor even in the much later sculptures of Sanchi
dating from the end of the first century A.D. is there any
representation of Buddha, the sole objects of reverence being stûpas
(representations of the tombs of holy men), wheels, or trees. At a later
date the tree appears to have lost its organic connection with the
venerated personage, and to have preserved only a ceremonial and
symbolic significance, for the Bo-tree, under which truth gradually
unfolded itself to the meditating Gautama, is regarded as sacred by
Buddhists in much the same way as the cross is by Christians.
There can be no doubt, however, that in the earliest forms of worship
current in India, the alliance between the plant world and the divine
essence was extremely intimate. The great creative god Brahma, who, by
the light of his countenance, dispelled the primeval gloom, and by his
divine influence evoked the earth from the primeval ocean, is
represented in Hindu theology as having emanated from a golden lotus
which had been quickened into life when the spirit of Om moved over the
face of the waters. Again, in Brahminical worship the very essence of
the deity is supposed to descend into his tree. The tulasi or holy basil
of India is believed by the Hindus to be pervaded by the divinity of
Vishnu and of his wife Lakshmi, and hence is venerated as a god. It
opens the gates of heaven to the pious worshipper, and those who uproot
it will be punished by Vishnu in time and eternity.[91]
In fact, in the twilight of religion, wherever we turn, the same idea of
a tree-inhabiting god prevails. In the mythology of Northern Europe the
grove of Upsala, the most sacred spot in all the Scandinavian peninsula,
was the home of Woden, the god who, after hanging for nine nights on the
gallows-tree, descended to the underworld and brought back the prize of
wisdom in the form of nine rune songs.[92] In the Middle Ages, according
to the rule by which the gods of one age become the demons of the next,
Woden was converted into Satan, his grove became the Brocken, and the
Valkyrie degenerated into witches. Taara, the supreme god of the Finns
and Esthonians, was associated with the oak, and the same is true of the
Norse god, Balder, at whose death, we are told, men, animals, and plants
wept. The principal god of the ancient Prussians was supposed to dwell
by preference in the great oak at Romove,[93] before which a hierarchy
of priests kept up a continual fire of oak-logs. The oak was veiled from
view, like the pictures in a modern continental church, and only shown
from time to time to its worshippers. The grove where it stood was so
sacred that only the consecrated were allowed to enter, and no branch in
it might be injured.[94]
[Illustration: Fig. 21.—Sacred sycamore, with offerings.(Maspero, op.
cit.)]
If proof were needed of the reverence with which the tree was regarded
in ancient times and of its hold upon the reverence of the people, as
being the dwelling-place of the god, it could be found alone in the
number of the gifts, which, by the evidence of ancient literature and
art, it was the practice to hang upon its branches or place about its
trunk. In Arabia there was a tree, identified by Robertson Smith with
the sacred acacia of Nakhla, the dwelling-place of the goddess Al-’Ozza,
on which the people of Mecca at an annual pilgrimage hung weapons,
garments, ostrich eggs, and other offerings.[95] It is spoken of in the
traditions of Mahomet by the vague name of a _dhât anwât_, or “tree to
hang things on.” Another Arabian tree, the sacred date-palm at Nejrân,
was also adored at an annual feast, and hung with fine clothes and
women’s ornaments.[96] In Egypt, offerings of figs, grapes, cucumbers,
etc. were habitually made to the deities inhabiting the sycamores.
[Illustration: Fig. 22.—Sacred tree of Artemis, hung with weapons of the
chase.(Bötticher, Fig. 9.)]
A similar custom was well known in Greece, as is proved by the many
vases and sculptured tablets in which the tree is shown hung with
consecrated fillets and offerings, while the altar beneath groans with
gifts. Statius, writing in the second century B.C., describes a widely
celebrated tree, amongst many others similarly laden, as being covered
with bows and arrows, heads of boars, skins of lions, and huge horns,
which had been dedicated to it as trophies of the chase.[97] Conquerors,
returning from battle, would hang their weapons on the sacred tree with
a dedication to the all-powerful Zeus. The arms thus dedicated were
respected even by the enemy.
This custom of making offerings to the tree is no doubt of great
antiquity. In the legend of the Golden Fleece, Phryxus, having been
carried by the fabled ram across the Hellespont, sacrificed it to Ares,
and hung its priceless fleece on the boughs of a sacred beech-tree,[98]
whence it was subsequently recovered by Jason. Such dedication at the
shrines of the gods of something that had been of service and still had
value to the worshipper, was very common in Greek and Roman worship, and
in many cases the tree was the recipient of the gift.[99] The rich
brought their jewels, the poor their homely tools and utensils. The
fisherman dedicated his nets in gratitude for an exceptional catch. The
shepherd offered his flute as a welcome gift to Pan. Some of the
dedicatory inscriptions preserve for us the pathos of the gift.
“Daphnis, the flute-player, bowed with shaking age, has here dedicated
his shepherd’s staff, too heavy for his weak hand, to meadow-loving
Pan.”[100] Lais, grown old, hangs her too truthful mirror on the sacred
tree of Aphrodite. “Take it, O lovely Cytherea; to thee alone is undying
beauty given.”[101] In the same way Bacchic revellers, their frenzy
past, brought to the tree the cymbals, robes, and perfumed tresses they
had used.[102]
There is further evidence of the sanctity of the tree in the important
function given to branches and wreaths in religious ceremonies, a custom
which can find logical explanation only in a precedent tree-worship
deeply rooted in the popular mind. In the service of the gods of Greece
and Rome the wreath was indispensable. An uncrowned worshipper was in
the position of the man in the parable who had no wedding garment. And
the wreath must have been taken from the particular tree of the god
worshipped, so that the worshipper might be placed in closest communion
with the deity, and remain inviolate from molestation while thus clothed
with the divine protection.[103]
The carrying of the sacred branch in solemn procession formed the
essential feature in some of the most important religious festivals of
Greece. At the Daphnephoria, held every nine years at Thebes in Boeotia
in honour of Apollo, the chief post in the procession was held by the
Daphnephorus, or laurel-bearer, a boy chosen for his strength and
beauty. He was followed to the temple of the god by a chorus of maidens,
also bearing branches and chanting a processional hymn, and was regarded
for the occasion as the priest of Apollo, who himself bore amongst his
many other appellations that of Daphnephorus, because he had brought the
laurel to Delphi and planted it there.[104]
At the Pyanepsia and the Thargelia, two important Athenian festivals,
the _Eiresione_, a harvest wreath of olive or laurel bound round with
red and white wool, and hung with the choicest first-fruits, was borne
about by singing boys, while offerings were made to the gods.[105] A
vine branch with the grapes upon it gave its name to another Athenian
festival, the Oschophoria, or grape carrying, held in honour of
Dionysus. A race between chosen youths formed one of the events of the
festival, the competitors running from the temple of Dionysus to that of
Athena, with boughs in their hands.[106]
Apart, however, from these important festivals, the use of wreaths or
branches was a familiar incident in the daily life of the Greeks,
bearing with it always a sort of religious significance. The bringer of
good news was rewarded with a wreath; the guests at a feast were crowned
with flowers. No gift to the gods was complete without its floral
accompaniment, and their statues were often hidden under the wreaths
brought thither as the most acceptable offering.
It can scarcely be doubted that this lavish employment of blossom and
leaf as the expression of a religious emotion originally sprang from
reverence for the tree as the favourite home of a god. The Greeks, with
their instinctive love for all things beautiful, naturally pushed this
graceful custom further than other races. But the ceremonial use of
branches and flowers was common throughout the East. The Chaldaean
sacred texts mention the use of “green branches” in religious
ceremonies.[107] At the Feast of Tabernacles the Israelites were
enjoined to “take the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm-trees,
and the boughs of thick trees and willows of the brook, and rejoice
before the Lord.”[108] The Apocrypha mentions the “festal olive boughs
of the Temple.”[109] In Persia and Armenia it was customary to bear a
branch when approaching the god. In Egypt Isis was worshipped with
sprays of absinthe, palm-branches were carried in funeral processions,
and lotus wreaths usually worn at feasts, whilst in the Assyrian
sculptures illustrious persons are frequently represented holding a
flower.[110]
However little benefit the votaries of trees and images derived from
their observances, apart from the subjective strength and solace that
flow from every act of worship, there was at least one tangible service
their gods could render them—the right of sanctuary and asylum. For the
sacred tree, sharing as it did in the protective power of the indwelling
deity, offered an inviolable refuge to the persecuted and the god’s
forgiveness to the sinner who implored it. To have touched it was
regarded amongst the Greeks as equivalent to having touched an altar or
statue of the god. A branch of it, entwined with the consecrated fillet,
assured its bearer from persecution. Hence a possible explanation of the
legend of the young Dionysus standing secure amongst the branches of the
sacred tree whilst the flames raged around him.
[Illustration: Fig. 23.—Sacred laurel of Apollo at Delphi, adorned with
fillets and votive tablets; beneath it the god appearing to protect
Orestes.(From a vase-painting, Bötticher, Fig. 2.)]
Frequent references occur in the Classics to tree-sanctuaries. The
Amazons, defeated by Hercules, found a safe asylum beneath the holy tree
at Ephesus, which was worshipped both as the symbol and temple of
Artemis, before her statue was set up in the tree or her temple built
around it.[111] Herodotus relates how Cleomenes, having burnt the sacred
grove of Argos, together with the five thousand conquered Argives who
had taken refuge there, was visited by the gods with madness for his act
of sacrilege.[112] Orestes, in his flight from the Furies, is
represented on a Greek vase as seeking refuge beneath Apollo’s
laurel.[113] The god appears out of the tree to succour him and scare
away his pursuers. The cypress grove on the Acropolis at Phlius in
Peloponnesus was another instance. Fugitives from justice on reaching it
became inviolable, and escaped prisoners hung upon its trees the chains
for which they had no further use,[114] just as the modern cripple,
whose limbs have been freed from the prison of his palsy, dedicates his
crutches to “our Lady of Lourdes.”