the sacred tree stands less obviously in the direct line of ancestry of gods and of god than the sacred stone and the sacred stake which we have just considered. i would willingly pass it over, therefore, in this long preliminary inquisition, could i safely do so, in order to progress at once to the specific consideration of the god of israel and the rise of monotheism. but the tree is nevertheless so closely linked with the two other main objects of human worship that i hardly see how i can avoid considering it here in the same connexion: especially as in the end it has important implications with regard to the tree of the cross, as well as to the true vine, and many other elements of christian faith and christian symbolism. i shall therefore give it a short chapter as i pass, premising that i have already entered into the subject at greater length in my excursus on the origin of tree-worship, appended to my verse translation of the attis of catullus.

the worship of sacred trees is almost as widely diffused over the whole world as the worship of dead bodies, mummies, relics, graves, sacred stones, sacred stakes, and stone or wooden idols. the great authorities on the subject of tree-worship are mannhardt’s baumkultus and mr. j. g. frazer’s the golden bough. neither of those learned and acute writers, however, has fully seen the true origin of worship from funeral practices: and therefore it becomes necessary to go over the same ground again briefly here from the point of view afforded us by the corpse-theory and 139ghost-theory of the basis of religion. i shall hope to add something to their valuable results, and also incidentally to show that all the main objects of worship together leads us back unanimously to the cult of the dead as their common starting-point.

let us begin in this instance (contrary to our previous practice) by examining and endeavouring to understand a few cases of the behaviour of tree-spirits in various mythologies. virgil tells us in the third 脝neid how, on a certain occasion, 脝neas was offering a sacrifice on a tumulus crowned with dogwood and myrtle bushes. he endeavoured to pluck up some of these by the roots, in order to cover the altar, as was customary, with leaf-clad branches. as he did so, the first bush which he tore up astonished him by exuding drops of liquid blood, which trickled and fell upon the soil beneath. he tried again, and again the tree bled human gore. on the third trial, a groan was heard proceeding from the tumulus, and a voice assured 脝neas that the barrow on which he stood covered the murdered remains of his friend polydorus.

now, in this typical and highly illustrative myth—no doubt an ancient and well-known story incorporated by virgil in his great poem—we see that the tree which grows upon a barrow is itself regarded as the representative and embodiment of the dead man’s soul, just as elsewhere the snake which glides from the tomb of anchises is regarded as the embodied spirit of the hero, and just as the owls and bats which haunt sepulchral caves are often identified in all parts of the world with the souls of the departed.

similar stories of bleeding or speaking trees or bushes occur abundantly elsewhere. “when the oak is being felled,” says aubrey, in his remains of gentilisme, “it gives a kind of shriekes and groanes that may be heard a mile off, as if it were the genius of the oak lamenting. e. wyld, esq., hath heared it severall times.” certain indians, says bastian, dare not cut a particular plant, because there comes out of it a red juice which they take for its blood. 140i myself remember hearing as a boy in canada that wherever sanguinaria canadensis, the common american bloodroot, grew in the woods, an indian had once been buried, and that the red drops of juice which exuded from the stem when one picked the flowers were the dead man’s blood. in samoa, says mr. turner, the special abode of tuifiti, king of fiji, was a grove of large and durable afzelia trees. “no one dared cut that timber. a story is told of a party from upolu who once attempted it, and the consequence was that blood flowed from the tree, and that the sacrilegious strangers all took ill and died.” till 1855, says mannhardt, there was a sacred larch-tree at nauders in the tyrol, which was thought to bleed whenever it was cut. in some of these cases, it is true, we do not actually know that the trees grew on tumuli, but this point is specially noticed about polydorus’s dogwood, and is probably implied in the samoan case, as i gather from the title given to the spirit as king of fiji.

in other instances, however, such a doubt does not exist. we are expressly told that it is the souls of the dead which are believed to animate the speaking or bleeding trees. “the dieyerie tribe of south australia,” says mr. frazer, “regard as very sacred certain trees which are supposed to be their fathers transformed; hence they will not cut the trees down, and protest against settlers doing so.” some of the philippine islanders believe that the souls of their forefathers inhabit certain trees, which they therefore spare. if obliged to fell one of these sacred trunks, they excuse themselves by saying that it was the priests who made them fell it.

now, how did this connexion between the tree and the ghost or ancestor grow up? in much the same way, i imagine, as the connexion between the sacred stone or the sacred stake and the dead chief who lies buried beneath it. whatever grows or stands upon the grave is sure to share the honours paid to the spirit that dwells within it. thus a snake or other animal seen to glide out of a tomb is 141instantly taken by savages and even by half-civilised men as the genius or representative of the dead inhabitant. but do trees grow out of graves? undoubtedly, yes. in the first place, they may grow by mere accident, as they might grow anywhere else; the more so as the soil in such a case has been turned and laboured. but beyond this, in the second place, it is common all over the world to plant trees or shrubs over the graves of relatives or tribesmen. though direct evidence on this point is difficult to obtain, a little is forthcoming. in algeria, i observed, the arab women went on fridays to plant flowers and shrubs on the graves of their immediate dead. i learned from mr. r. l. stevenson that similar plantings take place in samoa and fiji. the tahitians put young casuarinas on graves. in roman catholic countries the planting of shrubs in cemeteries takes place usually on the jour des morts, a custom which would argue for it an immense antiquity; for though it is a point of honour among catholics to explain this fete as of comparatively recent origin, definitely introduced by a particular saint at a particular period, its analogy to similar celebrations elsewhere shows us that it is really a surviving relic of a very ancient form of manesworship.

in gr忙co-roman antiquity it is certain that trees were frequently planted around the barrows of the dead; and that leafy branches formed part of the established ceremonial of funerals. i cannot do better than quote in this respect once more the case of polydorus:=

ergo instauramus polydoro funus, et ingens

aggeritur tumulo tellus; stant manibus ar忙,

c忙ruleis most忙 vittis atraque cupresso.=

suetonius again tells us how the tumulus of the divine augustus was carefully planted; and the manner in which he notes the fact seems to me to argue that some special importance was attached to the ceremony. the acacia is one of the most sacred trees of egypt; and egyptian monuments, with their usual frankness, show us a sarcophagus 142from which an acacia emerges, with the na茂ve motto, “osiris springs forth.”,

an incident which occurred during the recent sino-japanese war shows how easily points of this sort may be overlooked by hasty writers in formal descriptions. one of the london illustrated papers printed an account of the burial of the japanese dead at port arthur, and after mentioning the simple headstone erected at each grave volunteered the further statement that nothing else marked the place of interment. but the engraving which accompanied it, taken from a photograph, showed on the contrary that a little tree had also been planted on each tiny tumulus.

i learn from mr. william simpson that the tombs of the kings near pekin are conspicuous from afar by their lofty groves of pine trees.

evergreens, i believe, are specially planted upon graves or tumuli because they retain their greenness throughout the entire winter, and thus as it were give continuous evidence of the vitality and activity of the indwelling spirit. mr. frazer has shown in the golden bough that mistletoe similarly owes its special sanctity to the fact that it visibly holds the soul of the tree uninjured in itself, while all the surrounding branches stand bare and lifeless. accordingly, tumuli are very frequently crowned by evergreens. almost all the round barrows in southern england, for example, are topped by very ancient scotch firs; and as the scotch fir is not an indigenous tree south of the tweed, it is practically certain that these old pines are the descendants of ancestors put in by human hands when the barrows were first raised over the cremated and buried bodies of prehistoric chieftains. in short, the scotch fir is in england the sacred tree of the barrows. as a rule, however, in northern europe, the yew is the species specially planted in graveyards, and several such yews in various parts of england and germany are held to possess a peculiar sanctity. the great clump of very ancient yews in 143norbury park near dorking, known as the druids’ grove, has long been considered a holy wood of remote antiquity. in southern europe, the cypress replaces the yew as the evergreen most closely connected with tombs and cemeteries. in provence and italy, however, the evergreen holme-oak is almost equally a conventional denizen of places of interment. m. lajard in his able essay sur le culte du cypres has brought together much evidence of this worship of evergreens, among the greeks, etruscans, romans, phoenicians, arabs, persians, hindus, chinese, and american nations.

sacred trees, especially when standing alone, are treated in many respects with the same ceremonial as is employed towards dead bodies, mummies, graves, sacred stones, sacred stakes, and carved idols or statues. in other words, the offerings to the ghost or god may be made to the tree that grows on the grave just as well as to any other of the recognised embodiments of the indwelling spirit. darwin in the voyage of the beagle describes how the indians of south america would greet with loud shouts some sacred tree, standing solitary on some high part of the pampas; libations of brandy and mat茅 were poured into a hole at its base to gratify the soul of the deity who dwelt there. one of these tree-gods had a name, walleechu. the congo people, again, put calabashes of palm-wine at the foot of “trees treated as idols.” in other cases, blood is smeared on the tree; or oil is offered to it. mr. duff macdonald’s central africans kill chickens at the foot of the “prayer tree,” and let its blood trickle down to the roots. oldfield saw at addacoodah fowls and many other articles of food suspended as offerings to a gigantic tree. sir william hunter mentions that once a year at beerbhoom the santals “make simple offerings to a ghost who dwells in a bela tree.” in tonga, the natives lay presents of food at the foot of particular trees which they believe to be inhabited by spirits. i need not multiply 144instances; they may be found by the hundred in dr. tylor and other great anthropological collections.

furthermore, the sacred tree is found in the closest possible connection with the other indubitably ancestral monuments, the sacred stone and the idol. “a bengal village,” says sir william hunter, “has usually its local god, which it adores either in the form of a rude unhewn stone, or a stump, or a tree marked with red lead”; the last being probably a substitute for the blood of human or animal victims with which it was once watered. “sometimes a lump of clay placed under a tree does duty for a deity; and the attendant priest, when there is one, generally belongs to one of the half-hinduised low castes. the rude stone represents the non-aryan fetish; and the tree seems to owe its sanctity to the non-aryan belief that it forms the abode of the ghosts or gods of the village.” that is to say, we have here ancestor-worship in its undisguised early native development.

i may mention here in brief that, as we shall hereafter see, this triple combination of stone, log, and tree forms almost the normal or invariable composition of the primitive shrine the whole world over.

the association of the sacred tree with actual idols or images of deceased ancestors is well seen in the following passage which i quote from dr. tylor: “a clump of larches on a siberian steppe, a grove in the recesses of a forest, is the sanctuary of a turanian tribe. gaily-decked idols in their warm fur coats, each set up beneath its great tree swathed with cloth or tinplate, endless reindeer-hides and peltry hanging to the trees around, kettles and spoons and snuff-horns and household valuables strewn as offerings before the gods—such is the description of a siberian holy grove, at the stage when the contact of foreign civilisation has begun by ornamenting the rude old ceremonial it must end by abolishing. a race ethnologically allied to these tribes, though risen to higher culture, kept up remarkable relics of tree-worship in northern europe. in 145esthonian districts, within the present century, the traveller might often see the sacred tree, generally an ancient lime, oak, or ash, standing inviolate in a sheltered spot near the dwelling-house; and the old memories are handed down of the time when the first blood of a slaughtered beast was sprinkled on its roots, that the cattle might prosper, or when an offering was laid beneath the holy linden, on the stone where the worshipper knelt on his bare knees, moving from east to west and back, which stone he kissed when he had said, ‘receive the food as an offering.‘” after the evidence already given, i do not think there can be a reasonable doubt, in such a combination of tree and stone, that we have here a sacrifice to an ancestral spirit.

similarly, in the courtyard of a bodo house is planted the sacred euphorbia of batho, the national god, to which a priest offers prayer and kills a pig. in the island of tjumba, in the east indies, a festival is held after harvest, and vessels are filled with rice as a thank-offering to the gods. then the sacred stone at the foot of a palm tree is sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificed animal, and rice is laid on the stone for the gods. when the khonds settle a new village, a sacred cotton tree must be planted with solemn rites, and beneath it is placed the sacrificial stone which embodies or represents the village deity. among the semites, says professor robertson smith, “no canaanite high place was complete without its sacred tree standing beside the altar.” we shall only fully understand the importance of these facts, however, when we come later to consider the subject of the manufacture of gods by deliberate process, and the nature of the bloody ceremonial which always accompanies it.

in some of the above instances it is incidentally mentioned that the trunks of sacred trees are occasionally draped, as we saw to be also the case with sacred stones, sacred stakes, idols, and relics. another example of this practice is given in the account of the holy oak of romowe, venerated 146by the ancient prussians, which was hung with drapery like the ashera, and decked with little hanging images of the gods. the holy trees of ireland are still covered with rag offerings. other cases will be noticed in other connexions hereafter.

once more, just as stones come to be regarded as ancestors, so by a like process do sacred trees. thus galton says in south africa, “we passed a magnificent tree. it was the parent of all the damaras.... the savages danced round it in great delight.” several indian tribes believe themselves to be the sons of trees. many other cases are noted by mr. herbert spencer and dr. tylor. i do not think it is necessary for our argument to repeat them here. sometimes, however, especially in later rationalising times, the sacred tree is merely said to have been planted by the god or hero whom it commemorates. thus the cypresses of herakles at daphne were believed to have been set on the spot by that deity, while the tamarisk at beersheba was supposed to have been placed there by abraham.

i hope it is clear from this rapid resume that all the facts about the worship of sacred trees stand exactly parallel to those with regard to the worship of graves, mummies, idols, sacred stones, sacred stakes, and other signs of departed spirits. indeed, we have sometimes direct evidence of such affiliation. thus mr. turner says of a sacred tree on a certain spot in the island of savaii, which enjoyed rights of sanctuary like the cities of refuge or a medi忙val cathedral: “it is said that the king of a division of upolu, called atua, once lived at that spot. after he died, the house fell into decay; but the tree was fixed on as representing the departed king, and out of respect for his memory it was made the substitute of a living and royal protector.” by the light of this remark we may surely interpret in a similar sense such other statements of mr. turner’s as that a sweet-scented tree in another place “was held to be the habitat of a household god, and anything aromatic 147which the family happened to get was presented to it as an offering;” or again, “a family god was supposed to live” in another tree; “and hence no one dared to pluck a leaf or break a branch.” for family gods, as we saw in a previous chapter, are really family ghosts, promoted to be deities.

in modern accounts of sacred trees much stress is usually laid upon the fact that they are large and well-grown, often very conspicuous, and occupying a height, where they serve as landmarks. hence it has frequently been taken for granted that they have been selected for worship on account of their size and commanding position. this, however, i think, is a case of putting the cart before the horse, as though one were to say that st. peter’s and westminster abbey, the temple of karnak or the mosque of omar, owed their sanctity to their imposing dimensions. there is every reason why a sacred tree should grow to be exceptionally large and conspicuous. barrows are usually built on more or less commanding heights, where they may attract general attention. the ground is laboured, piled high, freed from weeds, and enriched by blood and other offerings. the tree, being sacred, is tended and cared for. it is never cut down, and so naturally on the average of instances grows to be a big and well-developed specimen. hence i hold the tree is usually big because it is sacred, not sacred because it is big. on the other hand, where a tree already full-grown is chosen for a place of burial, it would no doubt be natural to choose a large and conspicuous one. thus i read of the tree under which dr. livingstone’s heart was buried by his native servant, “it is the largest in the neighbourhood.”

looking at the question broadly, the case stands thus. we know that in many instances savages inter their dead under the shade of big trees. we know that such trees are thereafter considered sacred, and worshipped with blood, clothes, drapery, offerings. we know that young shrubs 148or trees are frequently planted on graves in all countries. we know that whatever comes up on or out of a grave is counted as representative of the ghost within it. the presumption is therefore in favour of any particular sacred tree being of funereal origin; and the onus of proving the opposite lies with the person who asserts some more occult and less obvious explanation.

at the same time i am quite ready to allow here, as in previous instances, when once the idea of certain trees being sacred has grown common among men, many trees may come to possess by pure association a sanctity of their own. this is doubtless the case in india with the peepul, and in various other countries with various other trees. exactly the same thing has happened to stones. and so, again, though i believe the temple to have been developed out of the tomb or its covering, i do not deny that churches are now built apart from tombs, though always dedicated to the worship of a god who is demonstrably a particular deified personage.

another point on which i must touch briefly is that of the sacred grove or cluster of trees. these often represent, i take it, the trees planted in the temenos or sacred tabooed space which surrounds the primitive tomb or temple. the koubbas or little dome-shaped tombs of mahommedan saints so common in north africa are all surrounded by such a walled enclosure, within which ornamental or other trees are habitually planted. in many cases these are palms—the familiar sacred tree of mesopotamia, about which more must be said hereafter in a later chapter. the well-known bois sacr茅 at blidah is a considerable grove, with a koubba in its midst. a similar temenos frequently surrounded the egyptian and the greek temple. i do not assert that these were always of necessity actual tombs; but they were at any rate cenotaphs. when once people had got accustomed to the idea that certain trees were sacred to the memory of their ancestors or their gods, it would be but a slight step to plant such trees 149round an empty temple. when xenophon, for example, built a shrine to artemis, and planted around it a grove of many kinds of fruit trees, and placed in it an altar and an image of the goddess, nobody would for a moment suppose he erected it over the body of an actual dead artemis. but men would never have begun building temples and consecrating groves at all if they had not first built houses for the dead god-chief, and planted shrubs and trees upon his venerated tumulus. nay, even the na茂ve inscription upon xenophon’s shrine—“he who lives here and enjoys the fruits of the ground must every year offer the tenth part of the produce to the goddess, and out of the residue keep the temple in repair”—does it not carry us back implicitly to the origin of priesthood, and of the desire for perpetuity in the due maintenance of the religious offices?

i shall say nothing here about the evolution of the great civilised tree-gods like attis and adonis, so common in the region of the eastern mediterranean, partly because i have already treated them at some length in the essay on tree-worship to which i have alluded above, and partly because they would lead us too far afield from our present subject. but a few words must be devoted in passing to the prevalence of tree-worship among the semitic peoples, intimately connected as it is with the rise of certain important elements in the christian cult.

“in all parts of the semitic area,” says professor robertson smith, “trees were adored as divine.” among the species thus honoured he enumerates especially the pines and cedars of lebanon, the evergreen oaks of the palestinian hills, the tamarisks of the syrian jungles, and the acacias of the arabian wadies. most of these, it will be noted, are evergreens. in arabia, the most striking case on record is that of the sacred date-palm at nejran. this was adored at an annual feast, when it was “all hung with fine clothes and women’s ornaments.” a similar tree existed at mecca, to which the people resorted annually, 150and hung upon it weapons, garments, ostrich eggs, and other offerings. in a sacred acacia at nakla a goddess was supposed to live. the modern arabs still hang pieces of flesh on such sacred trees, honour them with sacrifices, and present them with rags of calico and coloured beads.

as regards the phoenicians and canaanites, philo byblius says that plants were in ancient times revered as gods, and honoured with libations and sacrifices. dr. robertson smith gives several instances. christianity has not extinguished the veneration for sacred trees in syria, where they are still prayed to in sickness and hung with rags. the moslems of palestine also venerate the sacred trees of immemorial antiquity.

in the hebrew scriptures tree-worship constantly appears, and is frankly dwelt with by professor robertson smith, who does not refuse to connect with this set of beliefs the legend of jahweh in the burning bush. the local altars of early hebrew cult were habitually set up “under green trees.” on this subject i would refer the reader to dr. smith’s own interesting disquisition on p. 193 of the religion of the semites.

with regard to the general sacredness of vegetation, and especially of food-plants, such as corn, the vine, and the date-palm, i postpone that important subject for the present, till we come to consider the gods of cultivation, and the curious set of ideas which gradually led up to sacramental god-eating. in a theme so vast and so involved as that of human religion, it becomes necessary to take one point at a time, and to deal with the various parts in analytic isolation.

we have now examined briefly almost all the principal sacred objects of the world, according to classes—the corpse, the mummy, the idol, the sacred stone, the sacred stake, the sacred tree or grove; there remains but one other group of holy things, very generally recognised, which i do not propose to examine separately, but to which 151a few words may yet be devoted at the end of a chapter. i mean, the sacred wells. it might seem at first sight as if these could have no possible connection with death or burial; but that expectation is, strange to say, delusive. there appears to be some reason for bringing wells, too, into the widening category of funereal objects. the oxen’s well at acre, for example, was visited by christian, jewish, and moslem pilgrims; it was therefore an object of great ancient sanctity; but observe this point: there is a mashhed or sacred tomb beside it, “perhaps the modern representative of the ancient memnonium.” every egyptian temple had in like manner its sacred lake. in modern syria, “cisterns are always found beside the grave of saints, and are believed to be inhabited by a sort of fairy. a pining child is thought to be a fairy changeling, and must be lowered into the cistern.” the similarity of the belief about holy wells in england and ireland, and their frequent association with the name of a saint, would seem to suggest for them a like origin. sacred rivers usually rise from sacred springs, near which stands a temple. the river adonis took its origin at the shrine of aphaca: and the grave of adonis, about whom much more must be said hereafter, stood near the mouth of the holy stream that was reddened by his blood. the sacred river belus had also its peculiar memnonium or adonis tomb. but i must add that sacred rivers had likewise their annual god-victims, about whom we shall have a great deal to say at a later stage of our enquiry, and from whom in part they probably derived their sanctity. still, that their holiness was also due in part, and originally, to tombs at their sources, i think admits of no reasonable doubt.

the equivalence of the holy well and the holy stone is shown by the fact that while a woman whose chastity was suspected had to drink water of a sacred spring to prove her innocence, at mecca she had to swear seventy oaths by the kaaba.

again, 152sacred wells and fountains were and are worshipped with just the same acts of sacrifice as ghosts and images. at aphaca, the pilgrims cast into the holy pool, jewels of gold and silver, with webs of linen and other precious stuffs. a holy grove was an adjunct of the holy spring: in greece, according to botticher, they were seldom separated. at the annual fair of the sacred terebinth, or tree and well of abraham at mamre, the heathen visitors offered sacrifices beside the tree, and cast into the well libations of wine, with cakes, coins, myrrh, and incense: all of which we may compare with the ostyak offerings to ancestral grave-stakes. at the holy waters of karwa, bread, fruit, and other foods were laid beside the fountain. at mecca, and at the stygian waters in the syrian desert, similar gifts were cast into the holy source. in one of these instances at least we know that the holy well was associated with an actual burial; for at aphaca, the holiest shrine of syria, the tomb of the local baal or god was shown beside the sacred fountain. “a buried god,” says dr. robertson smith quaintly, in commenting on this fact, “is a god that dwells under ground.” it would be far truer and more philosophical to say that a god who dwells underground is a buried man.

i need not recall the offerings to cornish and irish well-spirits, which have now degenerated for the most part into pins and needles.

on the whole, though it is impossible to understand the entire genesis of sacred founts and rivers without previous consideration of deliberate god-making, a subject which i reserve for a later portion of our exposition, i do not think we shall go far wrong in supposing that the sacred well most often occurs in company with the sacred tree, the sacred stone or altar, and the sacred tomb; and that it owes its sanctity in the last resort, originally at least, to a burial by its side; though i do not doubt that this sanctity was in many cases kept up by the annual immolation of a fresh victim-god, of a type whose genesis will hereafter 153detain us. indeed, dr. robertson smith says of the semitic worship in general, “the usual natural symbols are a fountain or a tree, while the ordinary artificial symbol is a pillar or pile of stones: but very often all three are found together, and this was the rule in the more developed sanctuaries.” i cannot agree with him on the point of “symbolism”: but the collocation of objects is at least significant.

thus, in ultimate analysis, we see that all the sacred objects of the world are either dead men themselves, as corpse, mummy, ghost, or god; or else the tomb where such men are buried; or else the temple, shrine, or hut which covers the tomb; or else the tombstone, altar, image, or statue, standing over it and representing the ghost; or else the stake, idol, or household god which is fashioned as their deputy; or else the tree which grows above the barrow; or else the well, or tank, or spring, natural or artificial, by whose side the dead man has been laid to rest. in one form or another, from beginning to end, we find only, in mr. william simpson’s graphic phrase, “the worship of death,” as the basis and root of all human religion.