The Golden Bough - The Original Classic Edition. Frazer Sir

"as they will not break the arm of an innocent person." These monks, of course, are Buddhists. But Buddhist

       animism is not a philosophical theory. It is simply a common savage dogma incorporated in the system of an historical religion. To

       suppose, with Benfey and others, that the theories of animism and transmigration current among rude peoples of Asia are derived

       from Buddhism, is to reverse the facts.

       Sometimes it is only particular sorts of trees that are supposed to be tenanted by spirits. At Grbalj in Dalmatia it is said that among

       great beeches, oaks, and other trees there are some that are endowed with shades or souls, and whoever fells one of them must die

       on the spot, or at least live an invalid for the rest of his days. If a woodman fears that a tree which he has felled is one of this sort,

       he must cut off the head of a live hen on the stump of the tree with the very same axe with which he cut down the tree. This will

       protect him from all harm, even if the tree be one of the animated kind. The silk-cotton trees, which rear their enormous trunks

       to a stupendous height, far out-topping all the other trees of the forest, are regarded with reverence throughout West Africa, from

       the Senegal to the Niger, and are believed to be the abode of a god or spirit. Among the Ewespeaking peoples of the Slave Coast

       the indwelling god of this giant of the forest goes by the name of Huntin. Trees in which he specially dwells--for it is not every

       silk-cotton tree that he thus honours--are surrounded by a girdle of palm-leaves; and sacrifices of fowls, and occasionally of human

       beings, are fastened to the trunk or laid against the foot of the tree. A tree distinguished by a girdle of palm-leaves may not be cut

       down or injured in any way; and even silk-cotton trees which are not supposed to be animated by Huntin may not be felled unless

       the woodman first offers a sacrifice of fowls and palmoil to purge himself of the proposed sacrilege. To omit the sacrifice is an

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       offence which may be punished with death. Among the Kangra mountains of the Punjaub a girl used to be annually sacrificed to an old cedar-tree, the families of the village taking it in turn to supply the victim. The tree was cut down not very many years ago.

       If trees are animate, they are necessarily sensitive and the cutting of them down becomes a delicate surgical operation, which must be performed with as tender a regard as possible for the feelings of the sufferers, who otherwise may turn and rend the careless

       or bungling operator. When an oak is being felled "it gives a kind of shriekes or groanes, that may be heard a mile off, as if it were the genius of the oake lamenting. E. Wyld, Esq., hath heard it severall times." The Ojebways "very seldom cut down green or living trees, from the idea that it puts them to pain, and some of their medicine-men profess to have heard the wailing of the trees under the axe." Trees that bleed and utter cries of pain or indignation when they are hacked or burned occur very often in Chinese books, even in Standard Histories. Old peasants in some parts of Austria still believe that forest-trees are animate, and will not allow an incision to be made in the bark without special cause; they have heard from their fathers that the tree feels the cut not less than a wounded man his hurt. In felling a tree they beg its pardon. It is said that in the Upper Palatinate also old woodmen still secretly ask a fine, sound tree to forgive them before they cut it down. So in Jarkino the woodman craves pardon of the tree he fells. Before the Ilocanes of Luzon cut down trees in the virgin forest or on the mountains, they recite some verses to the following effect: "Be not

       uneasy, my friend, though we fell what we have been ordered to fell." This they do in order not to draw down on themselves the ha-tred of the spirits who live in the trees, and who are apt to avenge themselves by visiting with grievous sickness such as injure them wantonly. The Basoga of Central Africa think that, when a tree is cut down, the angry spirit which inhabits it may cause the death of

       the chief and his family. To prevent this disaster they consult a medicine-man before they fell a tree. If the man of skill gives leave to

       proceed, the woodman first offers a fowl and a goat to the tree; then as soon as he has given the first blow with the axe, he applies

       his mouth to the cut and sucks some of the sap. In this way he forms a brotherhood with the tree, just as two men become blood-

       brothers by sucking each other's blood. After that he can cut down his tree-brother with impunity.

       But the spirits of vegetation are not always treated with deference and respect. If fair words and kind treatment do not move them, stronger measures are sometimes resorted to. The durian-tree of the East Indies, whose smooth stem often shoots up to a height

       of eighty or ninety feet without sending out a branch, bears a fruit of the most delicious flavour and the most disgusting stench. The Malays cultivate the tree for the sake of its fruit, and have been known to resort to a peculiar ceremony for the purpose of

       stimulating its fertility. Near Jugra in Selangor there is a small grove of durian-trees, and on a specially chosen day the villagers used

       to assemble in it. Thereupon one of the local sorcerers would take a hatchet and deliver several shrewd blows on the trunk of the

       most barren of the trees, saying, "Will you now bear fruit or not? If you do not, I shall fell you." To this the tree replied through the

       mouth of another man who had climbed a mangostin-tree hard by (the durian-tree being unclimbable), "Yes, I will now bear fruit; I

       beg of you not to fell me." So in Japan to make trees bear fruit two men go into an orchard. One of them climbs up a tree and the

       other stands at the foot with an axe. The man with the axe asks the tree whether it will yield a good crop next year and threatens to

       cut it down if it does not. To this the man among the branches replies on behalf of the tree that it will bear abundantly. Odd as this

       mode of horticulture may seem to us, it has its exact parallels in Europe. On Christmas Eve many a South Slavonian and Bulgarian

       peasant swings an axe threateningly against a barren fruit-tree, while another man standing by intercedes for the menaced tree, say-

       ing, "Do not cut it down; it will soon bear fruit." Thrice the axe is swung, and thrice the impending blow is arrested at the entreaty

       of the intercessor. After that the frightened tree will certainly bear fruit next year.

       The conception of trees and plants as animated beings naturally results in treating them as male and female, who can be married to each other in a real, and not merely a figurative or poetical, sense of the word. The notion is not purely fanciful, for plants like animals have their sexes and reproduce their kind by the union of the male and female elements. But whereas in all the higher animals the organs of the two sexes are regularly separated between different individuals, in most plants they exist together in every individual of the species. This rule, however, is by no means universal, and in many species the male plant is distinct from the female. The

       distinction appears to have been observed by some savages, for we are told that the Maoris "are acquainted with the sex of trees, etc., and have distinct names for the male and female of some trees." The ancients knew the difference between the male and the female date-palm, and fertilised them artificially by shaking the pollen of the male tree over the flowers of the female. The fertilisation took place in spring. Among the heathen of Harran the month during which the palms were fertilised bore the name of the Date Month,

       and at this time they celebrated the marriage festival of all the gods and goddesses. Different from this true and fruitful marriage of

       the palm are the false and barren marriages of plants which play a part in Hindoo superstition. For example, if a Hindoo has planted

       a grove of mangos, neither he nor his wife may taste of the fruit until he has formally married one of the trees, as a bridegroom, to a