THE SACRED TREE
OR
THE TREE IN RELIGION AND MYTH

PREFACE

The reader is requested to bear in mind that this volume lays no claim to scholarship, independent research, or originality of view. Its aim has been to select and collate, from sources not always easily accessible to the general reader, certain facts and conclusions bearing upon a subject of acknowledged interest. In so dealing with one of the many modes of primitive religion, it is perhaps inevitable that the writer should seem to exaggerate its importance, and in isolating a given series of data to undervalue the significance of the parallel facts from which they are severed. It is undeniable that the worship of the spirit-inhabited tree has usually, if not always, been linked with, and in many cases overshadowed by other cults; that sun, moon, and stars, sacred springs and stones, holy mountains, and animals of the most diverse kind, have all been approached with singular impartiality by primitive man, as enshrining or symbolising a divine principle. But no other form of pagan ritual has been so widely distributed, has left behind it such persistent traces, or appeals so closely to modern sympathies as the worship of the tree; of none is the study better calculated to throw light on the dark ways of primitive thought, or to arouse general interest in a branch of research which is as vigorous and fruitful as it is new. For these reasons, in spite of obvious disadvantages, its separate treatment has seemed to the writer to be completely justifiable.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
TREE-WORSHIP—ITS DISTRIBUTION AND ORIGIN

Primitive conception of the tree-spirit—Illustrations of the evidence for tree-worship: from archaeology, from folk-lore, from literature, from contemporary anthropology—Earliest record of tree-worship, the cylinders of Chaldaea—The symbol of the sacred tree; its development—Meaning of the symbol—Tree-worship amongst the Semites—Canaanitish tree-worship—The ashêra—The decoration of the Temple at Jerusalem—Tree-worship in ancient Egypt—The sacred sycamores—Survival of the worship in the Soudan and in Africa generally—Osiris, originally a tree-god; compared with other vegetation spirits—Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, Dionysus—The sacred trees of the Persians—Tree-worship still existent in India; evidence of its ancient prevalence—Its incorporation in Buddhism—Other instances of tree-worship in the East—The evidence from America.

Greek and Roman tree-worship—The German religion of the grove—Persistence of the belief in tree-spirits in Russia, Poland, and Finland—Sacred trees in mediaeval France—The rites of the Druids—Evidence of tree-worship in Saxon England; its survival in May-day customs—General conclusions as to the ancient prevalence of tree-worship—Its origin; views of Robertson Smith, Herbert Spencer, and Grant Allen Page 1

CHAPTER II
THE GOD AND THE TREE

Tree-spirits divisible into tree-gods and tree-demons—The gods of antiquity subject to physical limitations, and approachable only through their material embodiment or symbol—This embodiment frequently a tree—The sycamores of Egypt believed to be inhabited by deities—Developments of this conception—In Greece the tree one of the earliest symbols of the god—The chief Greek gods in their origin deities of vegetation—The ritual of the tree—The tree dressed or carved to represent an anthropomorphic god—Late survival of this custom amongst the classical nations—Its prevalence in other countries.

The god’s own tree—Zeus and the oak—Apollo and the laurel—Aphrodite and the myrtle—Athena and the olive—The association of a particular god with a particular tree not known amongst the Semites—The bodhi-trees or trees of wisdom of the Buddhas—The sculptures of Bharhut—Brahma and the golden lotus—The holy basil of India—The grove of Upsala, the home of Woden—Taara and the oak—The great oak at Romove.

Gifts to the tree: in Arabia, in Egypt, in Greece—Dedication of arms, trophies, etc.

The use of branches and wreaths in religious ceremonies—The procession of the sacred bough in Greek festivals—The ceremonial use of branches common throughout the East.

The tree as sanctuary and asylum 24

CHAPTER III
WOOD-DEMONS AND TREE-SPIRITS

General characteristics of the tree-demon—The fabulous monsters of Chaldaea—The jinni of Arabia—The hairy monsters of the Bible—The tree-demons of Egypt—The woodland creatures of Greece—Centaurs and Cyclops—Pan, satyrs, and sileni—The fauns and silvani of Italy—Female woodland spirits—The hamadryads—Alexander and the flower-maidens—The vine-women of Lucian—Corresponding instances in modern folk-lore—The soul of the nymph actually held to inhabit the tree—The belief that blood would flow when the tree was injured—Examples from Virgil, Ovid, and from modern folk-lore—Indian belief in wood-spirits.

The wood-spirits of Central and North Europe—Their general characteristics—The moss-women—The wild women of Tyrol—The wood-spirits of the Grisons—The white and green ladies—The Swedish tree-spirit—The Russian Ljeschi—The Finnish Tapio—The Tengus of Japan—Wood-demons of Peru and Brazil 52

CHAPTER IV
THE TREE IN ITS RELATION TO HUMAN LIFE

The tree represented as the progenitor of the human race; as related in the Eddas; in Iranian mythology; amongst the Sioux Indians—The classical view—Human beings represented as the fruit of a tree—Individual births from a tree—Mythical births beneath a tree; Zeus; Hermes; Hera; Apollo and Artemis; Romulus and Remus.

Metamorphoses—Apollo and Daphne—Meaning of the legend—The daughters of Clymene—Baucis and Philemon—Other instances of metamorphosis—The growth of flowers from the blood of the dead, or from the tears shed over them—Transmigration of souls into trees—Tristram and Iseult—Sweet William and Fair Margaret—Other instances.

The conception of the tree as sympathetically interwoven with human life—The family tree—The community tree—The fig-tree in the Roman Comitium—The patrician and plebeian myrtle-trees.

The tree as the symbol of reproductive energy—The Semitic mother-goddess—Interpretation of the Chaldaean sacred tree as the symbol of fertility—The tree-inhabiting spirit of vegetation as the patron of fertility—Observances connected therewith 72

CHAPTER V
THE TREE AS ORACLE

The oracular power a corollary to the belief in the tree-inhabiting god—Connection of the tree-oracle with the earth-oracle—The oracles of the Chaldaeans—Canaanite tree-oracles—“The tree of the soothsayers”—The oracular oak of Zeus at Dodona—The oracle of Zeus Ammon—The prophetic laurel of Delphi—Oracular trees in Armenia, in Arabia—Alexander the Great and the Persian tree-oracles—The prophetic ilex grove at Rome—Other Italian tree-oracles: at Tibur; at Preneste—Tree-omens—Legends of speaking trees—Oracle-lots—The origin of the divining-rod—Cut rods believed to retain some of the divine power resident in the tree—The life-rood—The divining-rod a survival of the tree-oracle—Its modern use—Divination by roots and leaves 93

CHAPTER VI
THE UNIVERSE-TREE

Wide distribution of the conception—Its plausibility to the primitive mind; especially to the inhabitants of level countries—Earliest version of the world-tree found in an Accadian hymn of great antiquity—Probably a poetical amplification of the sacred spirit-inhabited tree—The world-tree and the world-mountain—The two conceptions combined in the Norse Yggdrasil, as described in the Eddas—Indian and Persian versions of the world-tree—Buddhist development of the idea—The cosmogony of the Phoenicians—Egyptian variants; the Tât-pillar; the golden gem-bearing tree of the sky—Traces of the world-tree in Chinese and Japanese mythology—A similar tradition amongst North American Indians.

The Eastern conception of the stars as fruits of the world-tree, and as jewels hung thereon—A motive common in Oriental art—The golden apples of the Hesperides—Other instances of the world-tree in European legend—The monster oak of the Kalevala—Corresponding tradition amongst the Esthonians.

The food of the gods, a conception associated with that of the world-tree—The Persian haoma, a mystical tree, producing an immortalising juice—Its terrestrial counterpart; the haoma sacrament—The Vedic soma; not only a plant but a powerful deity—Identification of the plant—De Gubernatis on the soma ritual—The effect of the soma drink—Corresponding conceptions amongst the Greeks—Origin of the idea 109

CHAPTER VII
PARADISE

Varieties of the tradition: (1) as the seat of the gods; (2) as the home of the first parents; (3) as the abode of the blessed—All associated with the conception of a mystical tree, in itself an idealisation of the spirit-inhabited tree worshipped on earth—The paradise of the gods in Indian tradition; its five miraculous trees—The paradise of Genesis and of the Persian sacred books—The tree of paradise compared with sacred cedar of Chaldaea—paradise as the abode of the blessed, a post-exilic tradition amongst the Jews—The paradise of the Talmud; and of the Koran—The confusion in the ancient traditions of paradise partly due to a limited conception of space and to a belief in the propinquity of heaven—Greek conceptions of paradise—Milton’s description influenced by ancient traditions of an elevated paradise.

The earthly paradise—Persistence of the tradition; Sir John Maundeville’s version—Icelandic tradition—The lost Atlantis of Plato a variant of the paradise legend—St. Brandan and the Isle of Avalon—Christopher Columbus—Japanese tradition of an island of eternal youth, with its marvellous tree—Developments of the idea of the tree of paradise—Its representation in art 128

CHAPTER VIII
MAY CELEBRATIONS

Their ancient religious significance—The old English May-day—Fetching in the May—Puritan condemnation of the May-poles—Their removal “as a heathenish vanity”—Existing survivals of May customs—May-day rhymes.

Origin of the celebrations: 1. The bringing in of the May-bough—Wide distribution of the custom an evidence of its antiquity—Its original intention—“The May” related to the harvest-bush of France and Western Germany, and to the Greek eiresione—Their common purpose, to bring to the house a share of the blessings assumed to be at the disposal of the tree-inhabiting spirit.

2. The May-pole: its primitive intention to bring to the village, as the May-bough to the family, the newly-quickened generative potency resident in the woods—Wide prevalence of the custom—Association of the May-pole with a human image or doll, representing the vegetation spirit—The Greek festival of the little Daedala—The May-pole, originally renewed every year, became later a permanent erection, newly dressed on May-day—Assumed beneficent influence of the May-pole.

3. The May Queen, May Lady, or King and Queen of the May: Evidence that these personages were originally regarded as human representatives or embodiments of the generalised tree-soul—Often associated with its vegetable representative, the tree or bough; or clothed in leaves and flowers, e.g. the Green George of Carinthia and our Jack-in-the-Green—The custom general throughout Europe—Robin Hood and Maid Marian originally King and Queen of the May—In primitive times the human representative of the vegetation spirit probably sacrificed, in order that the spirit might pass to a more vigorous successor—Human sacrifice in Mexico—Survival in symbol of this ancient custom in Bavaria, Swabia, Saxony, etc. 144

CHAPTER IX
CHRISTMAS OBSERVANCES

Distinctly pagan in their origin, and adapted to Christian use under the influence of the Church—The Roman Saturnalia—The use of mistletoe a direct legacy from the Druids—The decoration of the house with evergreens also a Druidic custom.

The Christmas-tree; its introduction into England extremely recent; not universally established in Germany, the land of its origin, until the present century—References to it by Goethe and Schiller—Earliest record from Strasburg about 1600 A.D.—Theological disapproval—Theories as to its origin—Probably connected with the legend of Christmas flowering trees—Examples—The Glastonbury thorn—Mannhardt’s view; a decorated tree the recognised scenic symbol of Christmas in the paradise play of the Middle Ages, wherein the story of the Fall was dramatically associated with that of the Nativity—An ancient German custom to force into flower boughs cut on a sacred night during the great autumn festival—The date of severance delayed under priestly influence so that the boughs might flower at Christmas—Instances of the survival of this custom—The lights on the Christmas-tree a comparatively recent innovation—Legends of light-bearing trees—The lights possibly derived from ancient solstitial observances—The Christmas-tree an illustration of the blending of pagan and mediaeval ideas—A point in which the many phases of tree-worship converge 162

INDEX 175

ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER PAGE

Sacred tree with its supporters, from St. Mark’s, Venice Frontispiece

1, Rudimentary and conventionalised forms of the sacred tree 5

2, 5

3. 5

4. Sacred tree with its supporters, surmounted by the winged disc, from an Assyrian cylinder 6

5. Sacred tree, from the Temple of Athena at Pryene 6

6. The same, from a sculptured slab in the Treasury of St. Mark’s, Venice 7

7. A Ba or soul receiving the lustral water from a tree-goddess 10

8. Sacred tree with worshippers, from eastern gateway at Sânchi 15

9. Sacred tree, from a Mexican manuscript 17

10. The goddess Nu̔ît in her sacred sycamore bestowing the bread and water of the next world 26

11. Sacred tree of Dionysus, with a statue of the god and offerings 27

12. Sacred pine of Silvanus, with a bust of the god, and votive gifts 28

13. Fruit-tree dressed as Dionysus 31

14, Forms of the Tât or Didû, the emblem of Osiris 34

15. 34

16. Apollo on his sacred tripod, a laurel branch in his hand 36

17. Coin of Athens, of the age of Pericles or earlier, showing olive spray 38

18. Coin of Athens, third century B.C. 38

19. The Bodhi-tree of Kanaka Muni 41

20. Wild elephants paying their devotions to the sacred banian of Kâsyapa Buddha 42

21. Sacred sycamore, with offerings 44

22. Sacred tree of Artemis, hung with weapons of the chase 45

23. Sacred laurel of Apollo at Delphi, adorned with fillets and votive tablets; beneath it the god appearing to protect Orestes 50

24. Imperial coin of Myra in Lycia, showing tree-goddess 87

25. Sacred tree and worshipper, from a Chaldaean cylinder 88

26. Sacred tree as symbol of fertility, from an Assyrian bas-relief 89

27. Yggdrasil, the Scandinavian world-tree 115

28. From a Babylonian seal 130

CHAPTER I
TREE-WORSHIP—ITS DISTRIBUTION AND ORIGIN

It is the purpose of the present volume to deal as concisely as possible with the many religious observances, popular customs, legends, traditions and ideas which have sprung from or are related to the primitive conception of the tree-spirit. There is little doubt that most if not all races, at some period of their development, have regarded the tree as the home, haunt, or embodiment of a spiritual essence, capable of more or less independent life and activity, and able to detach itself from its material habitat and to appear in human or in animal form. This belief has left innumerable traces in ancient art and literature, has largely shaped the usages and legends of the peasantry, and impressed its influence on the ritual of almost all the primitive religions of mankind. There is, indeed, scarcely a country in the world where the tree has not at one time or another been approached with reverence or with fear, as being closely connected with some spiritual potency.

The evidence upon which this assertion is based is overwhelming in amount, and is frequently to be found in quarters where until lately its presence was unsuspected or its significance ignored. For instance, in the interior of that fascinating storehouse of antiquity, St. Mark’s at Venice, there are embedded in the walls, high above one’s head, a number of ancient sculptured slabs, on each of which a conventionalised plant, with foliage most truthfully and lovingly rendered, is set between two fabulous monsters, as fantastic and impossible as any supporters to be met with in the whole range of heraldry (see Frontispiece). To the ordinary observer these strange sculptures say nothing; probably he passes over them lightly, as the offspring of that quaint mediaeval fancy which was so prolific in monstrous births. But the student of Oriental art at once detects in them a familiar design, a design whose pedigree can be traced back to the day, six thousand years ago, when the Chaldaean Semites were taking their culture and religion from the old Accadians who dwelt on the shores of the Persian Gulf. In the central plant he recognises the symbol or ideograph of a divine attribute or activity, if not a representation of the visible embodiment or abode of a god, and in the raised hand or forepaw of the supporters he discerns the conventional attitude of adoration. The design, in short, which was probably handed on from Assyria to Persia, and from Persia to Byzantium, and so to Venice, is a vestige of that old world religion which regarded the tree as one of the sacred haunts of deity.

Again, the same conception, the record of which is thus strangely preserved in the very fabric of a Christian edifice, is to be traced with equal certainty in the older and scarcely less permanent fabric of popular tradition and custom. The folk-lore of the modern European peasant, and the observances with which Christmas, May-day, and the gathering of the harvest are still celebrated in civilised countries, are all permeated by the primitive idea that there was a spiritual essence embodied in vegetation, that trees, like men, had spirits, passing in and out amongst them, which possessed a mysterious and potent influence over human affairs, and which it was therefore wise and necessary to propitiate.

A third example of the less recondite evidence on the subject is to be found in the Book that we all know best. When we once realise how deeply rooted and time-honoured was the belief that there was a spiritual force inherent in vegetation, we cease to wonder at the perversity with which the less cultured Israelites persisted in planting groves and setting up altars under every green tree. Read in the light of modern research, the Old Testament presents a drama of surpassing interest, a record of internecine struggle between the aspiration of the few towards the worship of a single, omnipresent, unconditioned God and the conservative adhesion of the many to the primitive ritual and belief common to all the Semitic tribes. For the backsliding children of Israel were no more idolaters, in the usual meaning of the word, than were the Canaanites whose rites they imitated. Their view of nature was that of the primitive Semite, if not of the primitive man. All parts of nature, in their idea, were full of spiritual forces, more or less, but never completely, detached in their movements and action from the material objects to which they were supposed properly to belong. “In ritual the sacred object was spoken of and treated as the god himself; it was not merely his symbol, but his embodiment, the permanent centre of his activity, in the same sense in which the human body is the permanent centre of man’s activity. The god inhabited the tree or sacred stone not in the sense in which a man inhabits a house, but in the sense in which his soul inhabits his body.”[1]

To the three classes of evidence, derived respectively from archaeology, from folk-lore, and from ancient literature, which have been thus briefly exemplified, may be added a fourth, equally important and prolific, that namely of contemporary anthropology. Scarcely a book is printed on the customs of uncivilised races which does not contribute some new fact to the subject. The illustration of an Arab praying to a tree, in Slatin Pasha’s recently published volume, is no surprise to the anthropologist, who has learnt to look for such survivals of primitive customs wherever culture still remains primitive.

Rudimentary and conventionalised forms of the sacred tree.
(From Chaldaean and Assyrian cylinders. Goblet d’Alviella.)

Now of all primitive customs and beliefs there is none which has a greater claim upon our interest than the worship of the tree, for there is none which has had a wider distribution throughout the world, or has left a deeper impress on the traditions and observances of mankind. Its antiquity is undoubted, for when history begins to speak, we find it already firmly established amongst the oldest civilised races. What is probably its earliest record is met with on the engraved cylinders of Chaldaea, some of which date back to 4000 B.C. Even at that period it would appear that the Chaldaeans had advanced beyond the stage of crude tree-worship, as found to this day amongst uncivilised races, for the sacred tree had already undergone a process of idealisation. In a bilingual hymn, which is of Accadian origin, and probably one of the most ancient specimens of literature in existence, a mystical tree is described as the abode of the gods. And it was probably by a similar process of idealisation that a conventional representation of the sacred tree came to be one of the most important symbols of Chaldaean religion. This symbol, which we have already seen in decorative use on the slabs at St. Mark’s, appears on the oldest Chaldaean cylinders “as a stem divided at the base, surmounted by a fork or a crescent, and cut, midway, by one or more cross bars which sometimes bear a fruit at each extremity. This rudimentary image frequently changes into the palm, the pomegranate, the cypress, vine, etc.[2] On the Assyrian monuments of about 1000 B.C. and later, the figure becomes still more complex and more artistically conventionalised, and it nearly always stands between two personages facing each other, who are sometimes priests or kings in an attitude of adoration, sometimes monstrous creatures, such as are so often met with in Assyro-Chaldaean imagery, lions, sphinxes, griffins, unicorns, winged bulls, men or genii with the head of an eagle, and so forth. Above it is frequently suspended the winged circle, personifying the supreme deity.” In his exhaustive chapter on this ancient design, M. Goblet d’Alviella has shown that it obtained a wide dissemination throughout the world, and is used even to this day in the fictile and textile art of the East.[3] M. Menant concludes from his exhaustive study of the cylinders, that the worship of the sacred tree in Assyria was intimately associated with that of the supreme deity, its symbol being incontestably one of the most sacred emblems of the Assyrian religion.[4] M. Lenormant’s view was that the winged circle, in conjunction with the sacred tree, represented the primeval cosmogonic pair, the creative sun and the fertile earth, and was a symbol of the divine mystery of generation.[5] In Babylonia the sacred tree was no doubt closely associated with Istar, the divine mother, who was originally not a Semitic, but an Accadian goddess, and whose cult, together with that of her bridegroom Tammuz, was introduced into Chaldaea from Eridu, a city which flourished on the shores of the Persian Gulf between 3000 and 4000 B.C.[6] That the Accadians were familiar with the worship of the tree may also be inferred from the fact that their chief god, Ea, was closely associated with the sacred cedar, on whose core his name was supposed to be inscribed.

But however much their attitude towards the sacred tree may have been modified under Accadian influence, the Chaldaeans in their worship of the tree only followed the rule of their Semitic kindred, for “the conception of trees as demoniac beings was familiar to all the Semites, and the tree was adored as divine in every part of the Semitic area.”[7] Even that stationary Semite, the modern Arab, holds certain trees inviolable as being inhabited by spirits, and honours them with sacrifices and decorations, and to this day the traveller in Palestine sometimes lights upon holy trees hung with tokens of homage.

This strange persistence of a primitive religion in the very birthplace of a most exalted spiritual worship is an additional evidence of its remarkable vitality. For there is no country in the world where the tree was ever more ardently worshipped than it was in ancient Palestine. Amongst the Canaanites every altar to the god had its sacred tree beside it, and when the Israelites established local sanctuaries under their influence, they set up their altar under a green tree, and planted beside it as its indispensable accompaniment an ashêra, which was either a living tree or a tree-like post, and not a “grove,” as rendered in the Authorised Version. This ashêra was undoubtedly worshipped as a sacred symbol of the deity. Originally it appears to have been associated with Ashtoreth or Astarte, the Syrian Istar, the revolting character of whose worship perhaps explains the excessive bitterness of the biblical denunciations.[8] But the ashêra was also erected by the altars of other gods, and in pre-prophetic days even beside that of Jehovah Himself, whence it may be concluded that “in early times tree-worship had such a vogue in Canaan, that the sacred tree or the pole, its surrogate, had come to be viewed as a general symbol of deity.”[9] The great antiquity of the cult in Syria was recognised in the local traditions, for an old Phoenician cosmogony, quoted by Eusebius, states that “the first men consecrated the plants shooting out of the earth, and judged them gods, and worshipped them, and made meat and drink offerings to them.”[10] In addition to the ashêra, the Chaldaean symbol of the sacred tree between its supporters was also familiar to the Phoenicians, and is found wherever their art penetrated, notably in Cyprus and on the archaic pottery of Corinth and Athens.[11] It is highly probable that both these sacred symbols had a common origin, but the connection must have been lost sight of in later times, for we find Ezekiel, to whom the prophetic denunciations of the ashêra must have been familiar, decorating the temple of his vision with designs evidently derived from the Chaldaean sacred tree, “a palm-tree between a cherub and a cherub.”[12] A similar ornamentation with palm-trees and cherubim, it will be remembered, had been used in the temple built by Solomon.[13]

Amongst the ancient Egyptians, whose “exuberant piety” required, according to M. Maspero, “an actual rabble of gods” to satisfy it, trees were enthusiastically worshipped, side by side with other objects, as the homes of various divinities. The splendid green sycamores, which flourish here and there as though by miracle on the edge of the cultivated land, their rootlets bathed by the leakage of the Nile, were accounted divine and earnestly worshipped by Egyptians of every rank, in the belief that they were animated by spirits, who on occasion could emerge from them. They were habitually honoured with fruit offerings, and the charitable found an outlet for their benevolence in daily replenishing the water-jars placed beneath them for the use of the passer-by, who in his turn would express his gratitude for the boon by reciting a prayer to the deity of the tree. The most famous of these sycamores—the sycamore of the South—was regarded as the living body of Hāthor upon earth; and the tree at Metairieh, commonly called the Tree of the Virgin, is probably the successor of a sacred tree of Heliopolis, in which a goddess, perhaps Hāthor, was worshipped.[14] The district around Memphis was known as the Land of the Sycamore, and contained several trees generally believed to be inhabited by detached doubles of Nu̔ît and Hāthor. Similar trees are worshipped at the present day both by Christian and Mussulman fellahîn.

On the outskirts of the province of Darfur the Bedeyat Arabs, though surrounded by Moslem tribes, still adhere to the same primitive cult. Under the wide-spreading branches of an enormous heglik-tree, and on a spot kept beautifully clean and sprinkled with fine sand, they beseech an unknown god to direct them in their undertakings and to protect them from danger.[15] They have, in short, retained, in spite of the pressure of Islamism, the old heathen worship which still widely prevails amongst the uncivilised races of the African continent. Thus on the Guinea Coast almost every village has its sacred tree, and in some parts offerings are still made to them. The negroes of the Congo plant a sacred tree before their houses and set jars of palm-wine under it for the tree-spirit.[16] In Dahomey prayers and gifts are offered to trees in time of sickness. One of the goddesses of the Fantis has her abode in huge cotton-trees. In the Nyassa country, where the spirits of the dead are worshipped as gods, the ceremonies are conducted and offerings placed not at the grave of the dead man, but at the foot of the tree which grows before his house, or if that be unsuitable, beneath some especially beautiful tree selected for the purpose.[17]

To return to ancient Egypt, there is evidence that the great Osiris was originally a tree-god. According to Egyptian mythology, after he had been murdered his coffin was discovered enclosed in a tree-trunk, and he is spoken of in the inscriptions as “the one in the tree,” “the solitary one in the acacia.” The rites, too, by which his death and burial were annually celebrated appear to couple him closely with Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, Dionysus, and other gods whose worship was associated with a similar ritual.[18] Mr. Frazer, following Mannhardt, contends that all these deities were tree-gods, and that the ceremonial connected with their worship was symbolical of the annual death and revival of vegetation. It is certainly true that in Babylonia, Egypt, Phoenicia, and above all in Phrygia, a peculiarly emotional form of worship, which subsequently extended to Cyprus, Crete, Greece, and Italy, arose in connection with deities who were closely associated with vegetable life. Tammuz—

and for whose resuscitation his bride, the goddess Istar, descended into Hades—was represented as originally dwelling in a tree.[19] Adonis, who was the beloved of Aphrodite—the Syrian Astarte—and is Tammuz under another name, was born from a myrrh-tree. Attis, the favourite of Cybele, who was worshipped with barbarous rites in Phrygia, was represented in the form of a decorated pine-tree, to which his image was attached. Dionysus, whose death and resurrection were celebrated in Crete and elsewhere, was worshipped throughout Greece as “Dionysus of the Tree.” These facts are sufficient to warrant the inference that tree-worship was very firmly rooted in those regions where the Semitic races came into contact with the Aryans. In Phrygia it was peculiarly prominent, as we know from classical references. The archaeological evidence is vague and incomplete, but a characteristic device frequent in Phrygian art, in which two animals, usually lions rampant, face one another on either side of a pillar, or an archaic representation of the mother-goddess Cybele,[20] recalls the sacred tree of Babylonia. The device is familiar in connection with the lion-gate of Mycenae, which was probably erected under Phrygian influence.

The Persians venerated trees as the dwelling-place of the deity, as the haunts of good and evil spirits, and as the habitations in which the souls of heroes and of the virtuous dead continued their existence. According to Plutarch, they assigned some trees and plants to the good God, others to the evil demon.[21] The Zend-Avesta ordained that the trees which Ormuzd had given should be prayed to as pure and holy, and adored with fire and lustral water;[22] and according to tradition, when Zoroaster died, Ormuzd himself translated his soul into a lofty tree, and planted it upon a high mountain. The cypress was regarded by the Persians as especially sacred. It was closely associated with fire-worship, and was revered as a symbol of the pure light of Ormuzd. It is frequently represented on ancient gravestones in conjunction with the lion, the symbol of the sun-god Mithra.[23] Another venerated tree was the myrtle, a branch of which was used as an essential accompaniment in all religious functions. The observances connected with the Persian worship of the Haoma plant will be dealt with in a later chapter. The Achaemenian kings regarded the plane as their peculiar tree, and a representation of it in gold formed part of their state. A certain plane-tree in Lydia was presented by Xerxes with vessels of gold and costly apparel, and committed to the guardianship of one of his “immortals.”[24]

In India, where tree-worship once enjoyed a wide prevalence, it has left indubitable traces on the religions which displaced it, and it is still encountered in its crudest form amongst some of the aboriginal hill tribes. The Garrows, for instance, who possess neither temples nor altars, set up a bamboo before their huts, and sacrifice before it to their deity.[25] On a mountain in Travancore there existed until quite recently an ancient tree, which was regarded by the natives as the residence of a powerful deity. Sacrifices were offered to it, and sermons preached before it; it served, indeed, as the cathedral of the district. At length, to the horror of its worshippers, an English missionary had it cut down and used in the construction of a chapel on its site.[26] The ancient prevalence of tree-worship in India is established by frequent references to sacred trees in the Vedas, and by the statement of Q. Curtius that the companions of Alexander the Great noticed that the Indians “reputed as gods whatever they held in reverence, especially trees, which it was death to injure.”[27] This ancient reverence for the tree was recognised by Buddhism, and adapted to its more advanced mode of thought. The asvattha or pippala-tree, Ficus Religiosa, which had previously been identified with the supreme deity, Brahma, came to be venerated above all others by the special injunction of Gautama, as that under which he had achieved perfect knowledge.[28] In his previous incarnations Gautama himself is represented as having been a tree-spirit no less than forty-three times. The evidence of the monuments as to the importance attached to the tree in early Buddhism is equally definite. The Sânchi and Ama-ravati sculptures, some casts of which are in the British Museum, contain representations of the sacred tree decorated with garlands and surrounded by votaries, whilst the worship of the trees identified with the various Buddhas is repeatedly represented on the Stûpa of Bharhut.