Cultus Arborum Part 5

"The chief theri, Sanghamitta, being desirous of leading a life of devotional seclusion, and the situation of her sacerdotal residence not being sufficiently retired for the advancement of the cause of religion and for the spiritual comfort of the priestesses, she was seeking another nunnery. Actuated by these pious motives, repairing to the aforesaid delightful and charmingly secluded thupo edifice, this personage sanctified in mind and exalted by her doctrinal knowledge, enjoyed there the rest of noonday.

"The king repaired to the temple of the priestesses to pay his respects to the theri, and learning whither she had gone, he also proceeded thither, and reverentially bowed down to her. The maharaja Dewananpiyatisso, who could distinctly divine the thoughts of others, having graciously consulted her, inquired the object of her coming there, and having fully ascertained her wishes, erected around the thupo a charming residence for the priestesses. This nunnery being constructed near the Hatthalaka hall, hence became known as the 'Hatthalaka wiharo.' The chief theri Sanghamitta, surnamed Sumitta, from her being the benefactress of the world, endowed with divine wisdom, sojourned there in that delightful residence of priestesses.

"Thus, this (Bo-Tree) monarch of the forest, endowed with miraculous powers, has stood for ages in the delightful Mahamego garden in the Linka, promoting the spiritual welfare of the inhabitants of Lanka, and the propagation of the true religion."

No trees, perhaps, are held in greater veneration in India, than the _Ficus Religiosa_ or pipal tree. It is known as Rarvasit, the tree of knowledge and wisdom, the holy "Bo-Tree" of the lamas of Thibet. Balfour's "Indian Cyclopaedia" says--"This large handsome tree grows in most of the countries of Asia, and is frequently to be met with near paG.o.das, houses and other buildings. One at Gyaine, South Behar, is said to have been that beneath which Sakya was reposing when his views as to his duties became clear to him, and if so, is more than 2,400 years old. It is also held in veneration by the Hindus, because the G.o.d Vishnu is fabled to have been born under its branches. In the Somavati festival, the Mahratta women circ.u.mambulate a pipal tree, and place offerings on it, when the new moon falls on a Monday. The pipal tree is preferable for avenues to the banyan.

The leaves are heart-shaped, long, pointed, wavy at the edge, not unlike those of some poplars, and as the footstalks are long and slender, the leaves vibrate in the air like those of the aspen tree. Silkworms prefer the leaves next to those of the mulberry. The roots are destructive to buildings, for if once they establish themselves among the crevices, there is no getting rid of them."

"It is the most sacred of trees with the Buddhists, who say it was under this tree that Gautama slept, and dreamed that his bed was the whole earth, and the Himalaya mountains his pillow, while his left arm reached to the Eastern Ocean, his right to the Western Ocean, and his feet to the great South Sea. This dream he interpreted to mean that he would soon become a Buddha. A branch of the tree was sent to Ceylon in the year 250 B.C., by Asoka--to the city of Amuradhapoora--together with certain relics of Gautama: his collar-bone, begging-dish, &c.; and it flourishes there as the Bo-Tree. For upwards of twenty centuries it had been an object of the profoundest veneration to the people, and particularly to the pilgrims in their annual visits to the ruins of the city."

Fergusson says--"Whatever may be the result of the investigation into the Serpent Worship of Ceylon, there is no doubt whatever about the prevalence and importance of Tree Worship in that island. The legend of the planting of the Rajayatana Tree by Buddha has already been alluded to, but the history of the transference of a branch of the Bo-Tree, from Buddh-gaya to Anuradnapury, is as authentic and as important as any event recorded in the Ceylonese annals. Sent by Asoka (250 B.C.), it was received with the utmost reverence by Devanampiyatisso, and planted in a most conspicuous spot in the centre of his capital. There it has been reverenced as the most important 'numen' of Ceylon for more than 2,000 years, and it, or its lineal descendant, sprung at least from the old root, is there worshipped at this hour. The city is in ruins; its great dagobas have fallen to decay; its monasteries have disappeared; but the great Bo-Tree still flourishes according to the legend--'Ever green, never growing or decreasing, but still living on for ever for the delight and worship of mankind.' Annually thousands repair to the sacred precincts within which it stands, to do it honour, and to offer up those prayers for health and prosperity which they believe are more likely to be answered if uttered in its presence. There is probably no older idol in the world, certainly none more venerated."

Stories ill.u.s.trating the peculiar reverence with which this tree is regarded are tolerably plentiful, and but for the limitations of our s.p.a.ce, might be almost indefinitely multiplied. A writer in _Notes and Queries_ relates that an old woman in the neighbourhood of Benares, was observed walking round and round a certain peepul-tree. At every round she sprinkled a few drops of water from the water vessel in her hand on the small offering of flowers she had laid beneath the tree. A bystander who was questioned as to this ceremony, replied--"This is a sacred tree; the good spirits live up amidst its branches, and the old woman is worshipping them."

Then some half-a-dozen years ago, when Mr. Barnum, the showman, of America, was completing the purchase of a certain white elephant, it was narrated in an Indian paper, that under the terms of sale, the purchaser was required to swear by the holy and sacred Bo-Tree that the animal should receive every kindness and consideration.

CHAPTER V.

_Sacred Trees very ancient in Egypt--Hebrew Trees--The Sycamore at Matarea--Ionic forms--The Koran on Mary and the Palm Tree--Sacredness of the Palm in Egypt--Tree Worship in Dahome--The sacred tree of the Canary Isles._

"Among the Egyptians, from the earliest period of their monumental history to the latest, we find represented on tombs and stets the figure of a sacred tree, from which departed souls in human form, receive the nourishment of everlasting life.

"The monuments of the ancient a.s.syrians also show a sacred tree symbolical of the divine influence of the life-giving deity. So also do those of the ancient Persians, and it was preserved by them, almost as represented on the a.s.syrian monuments, until the invasion of the Arabs.

"The Hebrews had a sacred tree which figured in their temple architecture along with the cherubim; it was the same sort of tree as that which had previously been in use among the Egyptians, and was subsequently, in a conventional form, adopted by the a.s.syrians and Persians, and eventually by the Christians, who introduced it in the mosaics of their early churches a.s.sociated with their most sacred rites. This tree, which occurs also as a religious symbol on Etruscan remains, and was abbreviated by the Greeks into a familiar ornament of their temple architecture, was the date palm, _Phnix dactylifera_.

"But although the earliest known form of the Tree of Life on Egyptian monuments is the date palm, at a later period the sycamore fig tree was represented instead, and eventually even this disappeared in some instances and a female personification came in its place.

"Besides the monumental evidence thus furnished of a sacred tree, a Tree of Life, there is historical and traditional evidence of the same thing, found in the early literature of various nations, in their customs and popular usages."[18]

The sycamore at Matarea in Egypt is still shown, which miraculously opened ionically to receive and reproduce the persecuted virgin when avoiding the cruelty of Herod.

Moor, the author of "Oriental Fragments," while noting that it does not appear that the sycamore was especially a mystical tree among any ancient people, and that he does not see anything mystical or peculiar in it, says:--"but here may be traced another link connecting through distant countries the chain of mystery in this line of thought--that is, of the mysticism of clefts or ionic forms and transit and trees. Those beautiful and interesting objects of producing and reproducing nature connect themselves, in the mystic contemplative eye, with all that is beautiful and interesting, and poetical and profound. They point up to the heavens, they strike down to Tartarus, but are still of earth:--a Brahma.n.a.l triad expressed by the Sanscrit word _bhurbhuvaswah_--heaven, earth, sky--a vastly profound trisyllabic-mono-verbal-mythos; holding, like the mighty Aum, or Om, in mystic combination, the elementals of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva."

The commendable delicacy, generally speaking of Mohammedans, and the prosaic nature of their religion, forbid s.e.xual allusions in their writings, and without impugning their fastidiousness on that point--not indeed always observable even in the _Koran_--we find there, and in the commentaries, a connection of birth and tree not very unlike what has been told or shadowed respecting Juno Samia, or Latona, and the Hindu Samia.

In the nineteenth _Sura_ or chapter of the _Koran_ ent.i.tled "Mary," much concerning the miraculous conception occurs. Having praised St. John, as a "devout person, and dutiful towards his parents; not proud or rebellious,"

and invoked a blessing on him in these words: "Peace be on him, the day whereon he was born, and the day whereon he shall die, and the day whereon he shall be raised to life;" the prophet continues: "And remember the story of Mary when the pains of child-birth came upon her near the trunk of a palm tree." "A withered trunk," adds a commentator, "without any head or verdure; notwithstanding which, though in the winter season, it miraculously supplied her with fruits for her nourishment." "And he who was beneath her," continues the Koran, "called to her saying, shake the palm tree, and it shall let fall ripe dates upon thee ready gathered."

Commentators differ as to whether it was the infant or the angel Gabriel who so called to the mother. They say "the dry trunk revived and shot forth green leaves, and a head laden with ripe fruit."

The note in Sale's translation says: "It has been observed that the Mohammedan account of the delivery of the Virgin Mary very much resembles that of Latona, as described by the poets, not only in this circ.u.mstance of their laying hold on a palm-tree (though some say Latona embraced an olive-tree, or an olive and a palm, or else two laurels), but also in that of their infants speaking."

Amongst the trees held sacred in Egypt, the palm ranked highest; and for this reason, that species of tree was most frequently used in the sacred buildings of that country, as indeed they afterwards were in those of the Hebrews, not perhaps for the same cause: for that was connected with the Sabian idolatries, which the latter were taught to detest. The real source of the veneration of the former for palm trees, and of the general cultivation of that plant in Egypt, which abounded with n.o.ble groves of them, is alleged to have been the following: They thought the palm tree, which is affirmed by Porphyry to bud every month in the year, a most striking emblem of the moon, from whose twelve annual revolutions those months are formed. Whether or not there be any truth in this, it is not easy to say, but it has been remarked by Poc.o.c.ke, that many of the most ancient pillars in the Egyptian temples bear great resemblance to palm trees, and that their capitals are made in imitation of the top of that tree when all the lower branches are cut off; and possibly, he adds, the palm trees said to be cut in Solomon's temple, might be only pillars, or at least pilastres of this kind. In his plate of Egyptian pillars may be seen various columns of this description, and a very remarkable one belonging to the temple of Carnack. Several of the capitals also in other plates bear an evident similitude to the expanded top of trees with their branching foliage cut off or compressed.

Captain Burton in his "Mission to Gelele," says: "In the days of Bosman (1700) the little kingdom of Whydah adored three orders of G.o.ds, each presiding, like the several officers of a prince, over its peculiar province.

"The first is the Danh-gbwe, whose worship has been described. This earthly serpent is esteemed the supreme bliss and general good; it has 1000 Danh'si or snake-wives, married and single votaries, and its influence cannot be meddled with by the two following which are subject to it.

"The second is represented by lofty and beautiful trees, 'in the formation of which Dame Nature seems to have expressed her greatest art.' They are prayed to and presented with offerings in times of sickness, and especially of fever. Those most revered are the Hun-'tin, or acanthaceous silk cotton (Bombax), whose wives equal those of the snake, and the Loko, the well-known Edum, ordeal or poison tree of the West African coast. The latter numbers few Loko-'si, or Loko spouses; on the other hand, it has its own fetish pottery, which may be bought in every market. An inverted pipkin full of cullender holes is placed upon the ground at the tree foot, and by its side is a narrow-necked little pot into which the water offering is poured. The two are sometimes separated by a cresset shaped fetish iron, planted in the earth. The _cultus arborum_, I need hardly say, is an old and far-spread worship; it may easily be understood as the expression of man's grat.i.tude and admiration. The sacred trees of the Hindu were the Pippala (_Ficus religiosa_), the Kushtha (_Cortus speciosus_), the sacred juice of the Soma, which became a personage, and many others. The Jews and after them the early Christians and the Moslems, had their Tuba or Tree of Paradise. Mr. Palgrave, traversing Arabia in 1862-63, found in the kingdom of Shower or Hail distinct tree worship, the acacia (_Talh_) being danced round and prayed to for rain. In Egypt and other Moslem lands rags and cloths are suspended to branches, vestiges of ancient Paganism. North European mythology embraced Yggdrasit, or the World Tree. We no longer approach the G.o.ds with branches of this sacred vegetation in hand; still the maypole and Christmas tree, the yule log and the church decorations of evergreens, holly and palms, and the modern use of the sterility-curing mistletoe, descend directly from the _treovveordung_, or tree-worship of ancient England."

Captain George Gla.s.s, in his "History of the Canary Islands," chapter 13, on the island of Hierro, says:--"On account of the scarcity of water, the sheep, goats and swine here do not drink in the summer, but are taught to dig up the roots of fern and chew them to quench their thirst. The great cattle are watered at the fountains, and at a place where water distils from the leaves of a tree. Many writers have made mention of this famous tree; some in such a manner as to make it appear miraculous; others again deny the existence of any such tree, among whom is Father Feyjoo, a modern Spanish author, in his "Theatro Critico." But he, and those who agree with him in this matter, are as much mistaken as they who would make it appear to be miraculous. This is the only island of all the Canaries which I have not been in; but I have sailed with natives of Hierro, who when questioned about the existence of this tree, answered in the affirmative."

The author of the History of the Discovery and Conquest has given us a particular account of it, which I shall relate here at large.

"The district in which this tree stands is called Tigulahe, near to which, and in the cliff or steep rocky ascent that surrounds the whole island, is a narrow gutter or gulley, which commences at the sea and continues to the summit of the cliff, where it joins or coincides with a valley, which is terminated by the steep front of a rock. On the top of this rock grows a tree, called in the language of the ancient inhabitants, Ga.r.s.e, _i.e._ Sacred or Holy Tree, which for many years has been preserved sound, entire and fresh. Its leaves constantly distil such a quant.i.ty of water as is sufficient to furnish drink to every living creature in Hierro; nature having provided this remedy for the drought of the island. It is situated about a league and a half from the sea. n.o.body knows of what species it is, only that it is called Til. It is distinct from other trees and stands by itself; the circ.u.mference of the trunk is about twelve spans, the diameter four, and in height from the ground to the top of the highest branch forty spans: the circ.u.mference of all the branches together is one hundred and twenty feet. Its fruit resembles the acorn and tastes something like the kernal of the pine apple, but is softer and more aromatic. The leaves of this tree resemble those of the laurel, but are larger, wider, and more curved; they come forth in a perpetual succession, so that the tree is always green. On the north side of the trunk are two large tanks or cisterns of rough stone, or rather one cistern divided, each half being twenty feet square, and sixteen spans in depth. One of these contains water for the drinking of the inhabitants, and the other that which they use for their cattle, washing and suchlike purposes.

"Every morning near this part of the island a cloud or mist arises from the sea, which the south and easterly winds force against the fore-mentioned steep cliff, so that the cloud having no vent but by the gutter, gradually ascends it and from thence advances slowly to the extremity of the valley, where it is stopped and checked by the front of the rock which terminates the valley, and then rests upon the thick leaves and wide-spreading branches of the tree, from whence it distils in drops during the remainder of the day, until it is at length exhausted, in the same manner that we see water drip from the leaves of trees after a heavy shower of rain. This distillation is not peculiar to the ga.r.s.e or til, for the bresos, which grow near it, likewise drop water; but their leaves being but few and narrow, the quant.i.ty is so trifling, that though the natives save some of it, yet they make little or no account of any but what distils from the til; which together with the water of some fountains and what is saved in the winter season, is sufficient to serve them and their flocks. This tree yields most water in those years when the Levant or easterly winds have prevailed for a continuance; for by these winds only, the clouds or mists are drawn hither from the sea. A person lives on the spot near which this tree grows who is appointed by the council to take care of it and its water, and is allowed a house to live in, with a certain salary. He every day distributes to each family of the district seven pots or vessels full of water, besides what he gives to the princ.i.p.al people of the island."

CHAPTER VI.

_Usefulness of the Ash Tree--Its position among Sacred Trees--The Queen of Trees--Mythology of the Ash--Scotch superst.i.tious usages--The "Ash f.a.ggot Ball" Somersetshire--Pliny and others on the Serpent and the Ash--The Ash as a medium of cure of complaints--Anecdotes--Phallic a.s.sociations--The New Birth--Ireland and the Ash--The Juniper Tree--The Madonna and the Juniper--The Elm Tree--Mythology of the Elm--The Apple Tree--Mythological allusions to the Apple Tree--The Pine Tree--Wind Spirits--German Superst.i.tions--The Oak Tree--Universal Sacredness of the Oak--The Oak of the Hebrew Scriptures--Cla.s.sic Oaks--Socrates and his oath--Greek sayings--The Trees speaking--Sacred Oak of Dodona--Legend of Philemon and Baucis--The Hamadryads--The Yule Log--St. Boniface--Mysteries connected with the Oak--The Christmas Tree._

The Ash, while one of the most useful and valuable of British trees, demands particular attention from the fact that it has always held a foremost position amongst the sacred trees of ancient nations. In the Scandinavian mythology it was the mundane tree--the symbolical tree of universal life. "Best and greatest of trees," it was called, "with a triple root reaching to the mythic regions of the first giants and the aesir, and penetrating to the nebulous Niflheim, its majestic stem overtopping the heavens, its branches filling the world; it is sprinkled with the purest water, whence comes the dew that falls on the dales, its life-giving energy is diffused throughout all nature."

It has been said that if the oak be regarded as the king of trees and the Hercules of the forest, the ash may fairly claim supremacy as their queen, and Gilpin terms it the "Venus of the Woods."

"At its foot is the Undar fountain where sit the three Norns or Fates--time past, time present, and time to come; these give Runic characters and laws to men, and fix their destinies. Here is the most holy of all places, where the G.o.ds a.s.semble daily in council, with All-Father at their head.

"These three Norns have a certain a.n.a.logy to the three mythic Persian destinies seated by the fountain of perennial life; and the tree itself is evidently a symbol of that inscrutable power which is the life of all things; thus representing, under an arborescent form, the most ancient theory of nature, a.n.a.logous to that personified in the Indian _Parvati_, the G.o.ddess of life and reproduction; also in the Egyptian _Isis_; and in the figure so frequently met with in the museums of Italy, called 'Diana of the Ephesians,' a variety of the Indian _Maya_.

"In the Chinese sacred books, 'the _Taou_ (the divine reason or wisdom, but here put for the _Deity_) preserves the heavens and supports the earth: he is so high as not to be reached, so deep as not to be followed, so immense as to contain the whole universe, and yet he penetrates into the minutest things.' The sacred ash of the Scandinavians corresponds as a symbol with the Chinese _Taou_."[19]

Hesiod and Homer both mention the ash; the latter mentioning the ashen spear of Achilles, and telling us that it was by an ashen spear that he was slain.

In the heathen mythology, Cupid is said to have made his arrows first of ash wood, though they were afterwards formed of cypress.

So much mystery has always been a.s.sociated with the ash tree, that in all ages and in all countries innumerable superst.i.tions have grown up in connection with it, and, from their modern propagation in an age of education, will evidently die hard.

In many parts of the Highlands of Scotland, at the birth of a child, the nurse puts one end of a green stick of this tree into the fire, and while it is burning gathers in a spoon the sap or juice which oozes out at the other end, and administers it as the first spoonful of food to the newly-born babe.

In Somersetshire, and some other counties, the burning of an ashen f.a.got is a regular Christmas custom, and it is supposed that misfortune will certainly fall upon the house where it is not duly fulfilled. In the same county, there is held annually the "Ash f.a.ggot Ball." The f.a.got is bound with three withes, which are severally chosen to represent them by the young people present--the first withe that breaks in the fire signifying that they who selected it will be the first to be married. It is said that these customs prevail extensively where the Arthurian legends are very strong, and that "it is probable that the a.s.sociation of the ash with Arthur grew out of its dedication to the G.o.ds of war, on account of toughness for weapons."

While many of the surviving superst.i.tions connected with the ash may probably be traced to Yggdrasill, it has been observed that though Yggdrasill was an ash, there is reason to think that, through the influence of traditions, other sacred trees blended with it. Thus while the ash bears no fruit, the Eddas describe the stars as the fruit of Yggdrasill. "This" says Mr. Conway, "with the fact that the serpent is coiled around its root, and the name Midgard, _i.e._, midst of the garden, suggest that the apple-tree of Eden, may have been grafted on the great ash." He also says there is a chapel at Coblentz where a tree is pictured with several of the distinctive symbols of Yggsdrasill, while on it the forbidden fruit is represented partly open, disclosing a death's head. The serpent is coiled round the tree's foot. When Christian ideas prevailed, and the Norse deities were transformed to witches, the ash was supposed to be their favourite tree. From it they plucked branches on which to ride through the air. In Oldenburg it is said the ash appears without its red buds on St. John's Day, because the witches eat them on the night before, on their way to the orgies of Walpurgisnacht.

Froschmauster along with Pliny records the ancient popular belief that a serpent will rather pa.s.s through fire in endeavouring to escape from an enclosed circle than go under the shade of or touch the bough of the ash.

In connection with this, Dioscorides affirms that the juice of ash leaves, mixed with wine, is a cure for the bite of serpents.

Another and a studiedly cruel superst.i.tion was that if a hole were bored in an ash tree and a live shrew mouse enclosed therein and left to perish, a few strokes with a branch of the tree thus prepared would cure lameness and cramp in cattle, afflictions supposed to have been brought on by the influence of the same little animal.

In our first volume of Phallic Worship an interesting reference was made to certain curative properties supposed to be connected with the pa.s.sing of a diseased or afflicted body through a cleft stick, twig, or tree.