Section 1. Tree-spirits.
IN THE RELIGIOUS history of the Aryan race in Europe the worship of trees has played an
important part. Nothing could be more natural. For at the dawn of history Europe was
covered with immense primaeval forests, in which the scattered clearings must have
appeared like islets in an ocean of green. Down to the first century before our era the
Hercynian forest stretched eastward from the Rhine for a distance at once vast and
unknown; Germans whom Caesar questioned had travelled for two months through it
without reaching the end. Four centuries later it was visited by the Emperor Julian, and the
solitude, the gloom, the silence of the forest appear to have made a deep impression on his
sensitive nature. He declared that he knew nothing like it in the Roman empire. In our own
country the wealds of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex are remnants of the great forest of
Anderida, which once clothed the whole of the south-eastern portion of the island.
Westward it seems to have stretched till it joined another forest that extended from
Hampshire to Devon. In the reign of Henry II. the citizens of London still hunted the wild
bull and the boar in the woods of Hampstead. Even under the later Plantagenets the royal
forests were sixty-eight in number. In the forest of Arden it was said that down to modern
times a squirrel might leap from tree to tree for nearly the whole length of Warwickshire. The
excavation of ancient pile-villages in the valley of the Po has shown that long before the
rise and probably the foundation of Rome the north of Italy was covered with dense woods
of elms, chestnuts, and especially of oaks. Archaeology is here confirmed by history; for
classical writers contain many references to Italian forests which have now disappeared. As
late as the fourth century before our era Rome was divided from central Etruria by the
dreaded Ciminian forest, which Livy compares to the woods of Germany. No merchant, if
we may trust the Roman historian, had ever penetrated its pathless solitudes; and it was
deemed a most daring feat when a Roman general, after sending two scouts to explore its
intricacies, led his army into the forest and, making his way to a ridge of the wooded
mountains, looked down on the rich Etrurian fields spread out below. In Greece beautiful
woods of pine, oak, and other trees still linger on the slopes of the high Arcadian
mountains, still adorn with their verdure the deep gorge through which the Ladon hurries to
join the sacred Alpheus, and were still, down to a few years ago, mirrored in the dark blue
waters of the lonely lake of Pheneus; but they are mere fragments of the forests which
clothed great tracts in antiquity, and which at a more remote epoch may have spanned the
Greek peninsula from sea to sea. 1
From an examination of the Teutonic words for "temple" Grimm has made it probable that
amongst the Germans the oldest sanctuaries were natural woods. However that may be,
tree-worship is well attested for all the great European families of the Aryan stock.
Amongst the Celts the oak-worship of the Druids is familiar to every one, and their old
word for sanctuary seems to be identical in origin and meaning with the Latin nemus, a
grove or woodland glade, which still survives in the name of Nemi. Sacred groves were
common among the ancient Germans, and tree-worship is hardly extinct amongst their
descendants at the present day. How serious that worship was in former times may be
gathered from the ferocious penalty appointed by the old German laws for such as dared to
peel the bark of a standing tree. The culprit's navel was to be cut out and nailed to the part
of the tree which he had peeled, and he was to be driven round and round the tree till all his
guts were wound about its trunk. The intention of the punishment clearly was to replace the
dead bark by a living substitute taken from the culprit; it was a life for a life, the life of a man
for the life of a tree. At Upsala, the old religious capital of Sweden, there was a sacred
grove in which every tree was regarded as divine. The heathen Slavs worshipped trees and
groves. The Lithuanians were not converted to Christianity till towards the close of the
fourteenth century, and amongst them at the date of their conversion the worship of trees
was prominent. Some of them revered remarkable oaks and other great shady trees, from
which they received oracular responses. Some maintained holy groves about their villages or
houses, where even to break a twig would have been a sin. They thought that he who cut a
bough in such a grove either died suddenly or was crippled in one of his limbs. Proofs of
the prevalence of tree-worship in ancient Greece and Italy are abundant. In the sanctuary
of Aesculapius at Cos, for example, it was forbidden to cut down the cypress-trees under a
penalty of a thousand drachms. But nowhere, perhaps, in the ancient world was this
antique form of religion better preserved than in the heart of the great metropolis itself. In
the Forum, the busy centre of Roman life, the sacred fig-tree of Romulus was worshipped
down to the days of the empire, and the withering of its trunk was enough to spread
consternation through the city. Again, on the slope of the Palatine Hill grew a cornel-tree
which was esteemed one of the most sacred objects in Rome. Whenever the tree appeared
to a passer-by to be drooping, he set up a hue and cry which was echoed by the people in
the street, and soon a crowd might be seen running helter-skelter from all sides with
buckets of water, as if (says Plutarch) they were hastening to put out a fire. 2
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. 3
But it is necessary to examine in some detail the notions on which the worship of trees
and plants is based. To the savage the world in general is animate, and trees and plants are
no exception to the rule. He thinks that they have souls like his own, and he treats them
accordingly. "They say," writes the ancient vegetarian Porphyry, "that primitive men led an
unhappy life, for their superstition did not stop at animals but extended even to plants. For
why should the slaughter of an ox or a sheep be a greater wrong than the felling of a fir or
an oak, seeing that a soul is implanted in these trees also?" Similarly, the Hidatsa Indians of
North America believe that every natural object has its spirit, or to speak more properly, its
shade. To these shades some consideration or respect is due, but not equally to all. For
example, the shade of the cottonwood, the greatest tree in the valley of the Upper
Missouri, is supposed to possess an intelligence which, if properly approached, may help the
Indians in certain undertakings; but the shades of shrubs and grasses are of little account.
When the Missouri, swollen by a freshet in spring, carries away part of its banks and
sweeps some tall tree into its current, it is said that the spirit of the tree cries, while the
roots still cling to the land and until the trunk falls with a splash into the stream. Formerly
the Indians considered it wrong to fell one of these giants, and when large logs were
needed they made use only of trees which had fallen of themselves. Till lately some of the
more credulous old men declared that many of the misfortunes of their people were caused
by this modern disregard for the rights of the living cottonwood. The Iroquois believed that
each species of tree, shrub, plant, and herb had its own spirit, and to these spirits it was
their custom to return thanks. The Wanika of Eastern Africa fancy that every tree, and
especially every coco-nut tree, has its spirit; "the destruction of a cocoa-nut tree is
regarded as equivalent to matricide, because that tree gives them life and nourishment, as a
mother does her child." Siamese monks, believing that there are souls everywhere, and that
to destroy anything whatever is forcibly to dispossess a soul, will not break a branch of a
tree, "as they will not break the arm of an innocent person." These monks, of course, are
Buddhists. But Buddhist animism is not a philosophical theory. It is simply a common savage
dogma incorporated in the system of an historical religion. To suppose, with Benfey and
others, that the theories of animism and transmigration current among rude peoples of Asia
are derived from Buddhism, is to reverse the facts. 4
Sometimes it is only particular sorts of trees that are supposed to be tenanted by spirits.
At Grbalj in Dalmatia it is said that among great beeches, oaks, and other trees there are
some that are endowed with shades or souls, and whoever fells one of them must die on
the spot, or at least live an invalid for the rest of his days. If a woodman fears that a tree
which he has felled is one of this sort, he must cut off the head of a live hen on the stump
of the tree with the very same axe with which he cut down the tree. This will protect him
from all harm, even if the tree be one of the animated kind. The silk-cotton trees, which
rear their enormous trunks to a stupendous height, far out-topping all the other trees of
the forest, are regarded with reverence throughout West Africa, from the Senegal to the
Niger, and are believed to be the abode of a god or spirit. Among the Ewespeaking peoples
of the Slave Coast the indwelling god of this giant of the forest goes by the name of
Huntin. Trees in which he specially dwells-for it is not every silk-cotton tree that he thus
honours-are surrounded by a girdle of palm-leaves; and sacrifices of fowls, and
occasionally of human beings, are fastened to the trunk or laid against the foot of the tree.
A tree distinguished by a girdle of palm-leaves may not be cut down or injured in any way;
and even silk-cotton trees which are not supposed to be animated by Huntin may not be
felled unless the woodman first offers a sacrifice of fowls and palm-oil to purge himself of
the proposed sacrilege. To omit the sacrifice is an offence which may be punished with
death. Among the Kangra mountains of the Punjaub a girl used to be annually sacrificed to
an old cedar-tree, the families of the village taking it in turn to supply the victim. The tree
was cut down not very many years ago. 5
If trees are animate, they are necessarily sensitive and the cutting of them down becomes
a delicate surgical operation, which must be performed with as tender a regard as possible
for the feelings of the sufferers, who otherwise may turn and rend the careless or bungling
operator. When an oak is being felled "it gives a kind of shriekes or groanes, that may be
heard a mile off, as if it were the genius of the oake lamenting. E. Wyld, Esq., hath heard it
severall times." The Ojebways "very seldom cut down green or living trees, from the idea
that it puts them to pain, and some of their medicine-men profess to have heard the
wailing of the trees under the axe." Trees that bleed and utter cries of pain or indignation
when they are hacked or burned occur very often in Chinese books, even in Standard
Histories. Old peasants in some parts of Austria still believe that forest-trees are animate,
and will not allow an incision to be made in the bark without special cause; they have heard
from their fathers that the tree feels the cut not less than a wounded man his hurt. In felling
a tree they beg its pardon. It is said that in the Upper Palatinate also old woodmen still
secretly ask a fine, sound tree to forgive them before they cut it down. So in Jarkino the
woodman craves pardon of the tree he fells. Before the Ilocanes of Luzon cut down trees in
the virgin forest or on the mountains, they recite some verses to the following effect: "Be
not uneasy, my friend, though we fell what we have been ordered to fell." This they do in
order not to draw down on themselves the hatred of the spirits who live in the trees, and
who are apt to avenge themselves by visiting with grievous sickness such as injure them
wantonly. The Basoga of Central Africa think that, when a tree is cut down, the angry spirit
which inhabits it may cause the death of the chief and his family. To prevent this disaster
they consult a medicine-man before they fell a tree. If the man of skill gives leave to
proceed, the woodman first offers a fowl and a goat to the tree; then as soon as he has
given the first blow with the axe, he applies his mouth to the cut and sucks some of the
sap. In this way he forms a brotherhood with the tree, just as two men become
blood-brothers by sucking each other's blood. After that he can cut down his tree-brother
with impunity. 6
But the spirits of vegetation are not always treated with deference and respect. If fair
words and kind treatment do not move them, stronger measures are sometimes resorted
to. The durian-tree of the East Indies, whose smooth stem often shoots up to a height of
eighty or ninety feet without sending out a branch, bears a fruit of the most delicious
flavour and the most disgusting stench. The Malays cultivate the tree for the sake of its
fruit, and have been known to resort to a peculiar ceremony for the purpose of stimulating
its fertility. Near Jugra in Selangor there is a small grove of durian-trees, and on a specially
chosen day the villagers used to assemble in it. Thereupon one of the local sorcerers would
take a hatchet and deliver several shrewd blows on the trunk of the most barren of the
trees, saying, "Will you now bear fruit or not? If you do not, I shall fell you." To this the tree
replied through the mouth of another man who had climbed a mangostin-tree hard by (the
durian-tree being unclimbable), "Yes, I will now bear fruit; I beg of you not to fell me." So in
Japan to make trees bear fruit two men go into an orchard. One of them climbs up a tree
and the other stands at the foot with an axe. The man with the axe asks the tree whether it
will yield a good crop next year and threatens to cut it down if it does not. To this the man
among the branches replies on behalf of the tree that it will bear abundantly. Odd as this
mode of horticulture may seem to us, it has its exact parallels in Europe. On Christmas Eve
many a South Slavonian and Bulgarian peasant swings an axe threateningly against a barren
fruit-tree, while another man standing by intercedes for the menaced tree, saying, "Do not
cut it down; it will soon bear fruit." Thrice the axe is swung, and thrice the impending blow
is arrested at the entreaty of the intercessor. After that the frightened tree will certainly
bear fruit next year. 7
The conception of trees and plants as animated beings naturally results in treating them as
male and female, who can be married to each other in a real, and not merely a figurative or
poetical, sense of the word. The notion is not purely fanciful, for plants like animals have
their sexes and reproduce their kind by the union of the male and female elements. But
whereas in all the higher animals the organs of the two sexes are regularly separated
between different individuals, in most plants they exist together in every individual of the
species. This rule, however, is by no means universal, and in many species the male plant is
distinct from the female. The distinction appears to have been observed by some savages,
for we are told that the Maoris "are acquainted with the sex of trees, etc., and have distinct
names for the male and female of some trees." The ancients knew the difference between
the male and the female date-palm, and fertilised them artificially by shaking the pollen of
the male tree over the flowers of the female. The fertilisation took place in spring. Among
the heathen of Harran the month during which the palms were fertilised bore the name of
the Date Month, and at this time they celebrated the marriage festival of all the gods and
goddesses. Different from this true and fruitful marriage of the palm are the false and
barren marriages of plants which play a part in Hindoo superstition. For example, if a
Hindoo has planted a grove of mangos, neither he nor his wife may taste of the fruit until
he has formally married one of the trees, as a bridegroom, to a tree of a different sort,
commonly a tamarind-tree, which grows near it in the grove. If there is no tamarind to act
as bride, a jasmine will serve the turn. The expenses of such a marriage are often
considerable, for the more Brahmans are feasted at it, the greater the glory of the owner of
the grove. A family has been known to sell its golden and silver trinkets, and to borrow all
the money they could in order to marry a mango-tree to a jasmine with due pomp and
ceremony. On Christmas Eve German peasants used to tie fruit-trees together with straw
ropes to make them bear fruit, saying that the trees were thus married. 8
In the Moluccas, when the clove-trees are in blossom, they are treated like pregnant
women. No noise may be made near them; no light or fire may be carried past them at night;
no one may approach them with his hat on, all must uncover in their presence. These
precautions are observed lest the tree should be alarmed and bear no fruit, or should drop
its fruit too soon, like the untimely delivery of a woman who has been frightened in her
pregnancy. So in the East the growing rice-crop is often treated with the same considerate
regard as a breeding woman. Thus in Amboyna, when the rice is in bloom, the people say
that it is pregnant and fire no guns and make no other noises near the field, for fear lest, if
the rice were thus disturbed, it would miscarry, and the crop would be all straw and no
grain. 9
Sometimes it is the souls of the dead which are believed to animate trees. The Dieri tribe of
Central Australia regard as very sacred certain trees which are supposed to be their fathers
transformed; hence they speak with reverence of these trees, and are careful that they shall
not be cut down or burned. If the settlers require them to hew down the trees, they
earnestly protest against it, asserting that were they to do so they would have no luck, and
might be punished for not protecting their ancestors. Some of the Philippine Islanders
believe that the souls of their ancestors are in certain trees, which they therefore spare. If
they are obliged to fell one of these trees, they excuse themselves to it by saying that it was
the priest who made them do it. The spirits take up their abode, by preference, in tall and
stately trees with great spreading branches. When the wind rustles the leaves, the natives
fancy it is the voice of the spirit; and they never pass near one of these trees without
bowing respectfully, and asking pardon of the spirit for disturbing his repose. Among the
Ignorrotes, every village has its sacred tree, in which the souls of the dead forefathers of
the hamlet reside. Offerings are made to the tree, and any injury done to it is believed to
entail some misfortune on the village. Were the tree cut down, the village and all its
inhabitants would inevitably perish. 10
In Corea the souls of people who die of the plague or by the roadside, and of women who
expire in childbirth, invariably take up their abode in trees. To such spirits offerings of cake,
wine, and pork are made on heaps of stones piled under the trees. In China it has been
customary from time immemorial to plant trees on graves in order thereby to strengthen the
soul of the deceased and thus to save his body from corruption; and as the evergreen
cypress and pine are deemed to be fuller of vitality than other trees, they have been chosen
by preference for this purpose. Hence the trees that grow on graves are sometimes
identified with the souls of the departed. Among the Miao-Kia, an aboriginal race of
Southern and Western China, a sacred tree stands at the entrance of every village, and the
inhabitants believe that it is tenanted by the soul of their first ancestor and that it rules
their destiny. Sometimes there is a sacred grove near a village, where the trees are suffered
to rot and die on the spot. Their fallen branches cumber the ground, and no one may
remove them unless he has first asked leave of the spirit of the tree and offered him a
sacrifice. Among the Maraves of Southern Africa the burial-ground is always regarded as a
holy place where neither a tree may be felled nor a beast killed, because everything there is
supposed to be tenanted by the souls of the dead. 11
In most, if not all, of these cases the spirit is viewed as incorporate in the tree; it animates
the tree and must suffer and die with it. But, according to another and probably later
opinion, the tree is not the body, but merely the abode of the tree-spirit, which can quit it
and return to it at pleasure. The inhabitants of Siaoo, an East Indian island, believe in certain
sylvan spirits who dwell in forests or in great solitary trees. At full moon the spirit comes
forth from his lurking-place and roams about. He has a big head, very long arms and legs,
and a ponderous body. In order to propitiate the wood-spirits people bring offerings of
food, fowls, goats, and so forth to the places which they are supposed to haunt. The
people of Nias think that, when a tree dies, its liberated spirit becomes a demon, which can
kill a coco-nut palm by merely lighting on its branches, and can cause the death of all the
children in a house by perching on one of the posts that support it. Further, they are of
opinion that certain trees are at all times inhabited by roving demons who, if the trees were
damaged, would be set free to go about on errands of mischief. Hence the people respect
these trees, and are careful not to cut them down. 12
Not a few ceremonies observed at cutting down haunted trees are based on the belief that
the spirits have it in their power to quit the trees at pleasure or in case of need. Thus when
the Pelew Islanders are felling a tree, they conjure the spirit of the tree to leave it and settle
on another. The wily negro of the Slave Coast, who wishes to fell an ashorin tree, but
knows that he cannot do it so long as the spirit remains in the tree, places a little palm-oil
on the ground as a bait, and then, when the unsuspecting spirit has quitted the tree to
partake of this dainty, hastens to cut down its late abode. When the Toboongkoos of
Celebes are about to clear a piece of forest in order to plant rice, they build a tiny house and
furnish it with tiny clothes and some food and gold. Then they call together all the spirits of
the wood, offer them the little house with its contents, and beseech them to quit the spot.
After that they may safely cut down the wood without fearing to wound themselves in so
doing. Before the Tomori, another tribe of Celebes, fell a tall tree they lay a quid of betel at
its foot, and invite the spirit who dwells in the tree to change his lodging; moreover, they
set a little ladder against the trunk to enable him to descend with safety and comfort. The
Mandelings of Sumatra endeavour to lay the blame of all such misdeeds at the door of the
Dutch authorities. Thus when a man is cutting a road through a forest and has to fell a tall
tree which blocks the way, he will not begin to ply his axe until he has said: "Spirit who
lodgest in this tree, take it not ill that I cut down thy dwelling, for it is done at no wish of
mine but by order of the Controller." And when he wishes to clear a piece of forest-land
for cultivation, it is necessary that he should come to a satisfactory understanding with the
woodland spirits who live there before he lays low their leafy dwellings. For this purpose he
goes to the middle of the plot of ground, stoops down, and pretends to pick up a letter.
Then unfolding a bit of paper he reads aloud an imaginary letter from the Dutch
Government, in which he is strictly enjoined to set about clearing the land without delay.
Having done so, he says: "You hear that, spirits. I must begin clearing at once, or I shall be
hanged." 13
Even when a tree has been felled, sawn into planks, and used to build a house, it is
possible that the woodland spirit may still be lurking in the timber, and accordingly some
people seek to propitiate him before or after they occupy the new house. Hence, when a
new dwelling is ready the Toradjas of Celebes kill a goat, a pig, or a buffalo, and smear all
the woodwork with its blood. If the building is a lobo or spirit-house, a fowl or a dog is
killed on the ridge of the roof, and its blood allowed to flow down on both sides. The ruder
Tonapoo in such a case sacrifice a human being on the roof. This sacrifice on the roof of a
lobo or temple serves the same purpose as the smearing of blood on the woodwork of an
ordinary house. The intention is to propitiate the forest-spirits who may still be in the
timber; they are thus put in good humour and will do the inmates of the house no harm. For
a like reason people in Celebes and the Moluccas are much afraid of planting a post upside
down at the building of a house; for the forest-spirit, who might still be in the timber,
would very naturally resent the indignity and visit the inmates with sickness. The Kayans of
Borneo are of opinion that tree-spirits stand very stiffly on the point of honour and visit
men with their displeasure for any injury done to them. Hence after building a house,
whereby they have been forced to ill-treat many trees, these people observe a period of
penance for a year during which they must abstain from many things, such as the killing of
bears, tiger-cats, and serpents. 14