and then pray before it, and fold up his mat again and go home. And the next night, and night after night, until that particular flower faded away, he would return to it, and bring his friends in ever-increasing troops to it, and sit and play the guitar or lute before it, and they would all together pray there, and after prayer still sit before it sipping sherbet, and talking the most hilarious and shocking scandal, late into the moonlight; and so again and again every evening until the flower died. Sometimes, by way of a grand finale, the whole company would suddenly rise before the flower and serenade it, together with an ode from Hafiz, and depart."

Tree-worship too has been more or less prevalent among the American Indians, abundant illustrations of which have been given by travellers at different periods. In many cases a striking similarity is noticeable, showing a common origin, a circumstance which is important to the student of comparative mythology when tracing the distribution of religious beliefs. The Dacotahs worship the medicine-wood, so called from a belief that it was a genius which protected or punished them according to their merits or demerits.[21] Darwin[22] mentions a tree near Siena de la Ventana to which the Indians paid homage as the altar of Walleechu; offerings of cigars, bread, and meat having been suspended upon it by threads. The tree was surrounded by bleached bones of horses that had been sacrificed. Mr. Tylor[23] speaks of an ancient cypress existing in Mexico, which he thus describes:—"All over its branches were fastened votive offerings of the Indians, hundreds of locks of coarse black hair, teeth, bits of coloured cloth, rags, and morsels of ribbon. The tree was many centuries old, and had probably had some mysterious influence ascribed to it, and been decorated with such simple offerings long before the discovery of America."

Once more, the Calchaquis of Brazil[24] have been in the habit of worshipping certain trees which were frequently decorated by the Indians with feathers; and Charlevoix narrates another interesting instance of tree-worship:—"Formerly the Indians in the neighbourhood of Acadia had in their country, near the sea-shore, a tree extremely ancient, of which they relate many wonders, and which was always laden with offerings. After the sea had laid open its whole root, it then supported itself a long time almost in the air against the violence of the winds and waves, which confirmed those Indians in the notion that the tree must be the abode of some powerful spirit; nor was its fall even capable of undeceiving them, so that as long as the smallest part of its branches appeared above the water, they paid it the same honours as whilst it stood."

In North America, according to Franklin,[25] the Crees used to hang strips of buffalo flesh and pieces of cloth on their sacred tree; and in Nicaragua maize and beans were worshipped. By the natives of Carolina the tea-plant was formerly held in veneration above all other plants, and indeed similar phases of superstition are very numerous. Traces of tree-worship occur in Africa, and Sir John Lubbock[26] mentions the sacred groves of the Marghi—a dense part of the forest surrounded with a ditch—where in the most luxuriant and widest spreading tree their god, Zumbri, is worshipped. In his valuable work on Ceylon, Sir J. Emerson Tennent gives some interesting details about the consecration of trees to different demons to insure their safety, and of the ceremonies performed by the kattadias or devil-priests. It appears that whenever the assistance of a devil-dancer is required in extreme cases of sickness, various formalities are observed after the following fashion. An altar is erected, profusely adorned with garlands and flowers, within sight of the dying man, who is ordered to touch and dedicate to the evil spirit the wild flowers, rice, and flesh laid upon it.

Traces of plant-worship are still found in Europe. Before sunrise on Good Friday the Bohemians are in the habit of going into their gardens, and after falling on their knees before a tree, to say, "I pray, O green tree, that God may make thee good," a formula which Mr. Ralston[27] considers has probably been altered under the influence of Christianity "from a direct prayer to the tree to a prayer for it." At night they run about the garden exclaiming, "Bud, O trees, bud! or I will flog you." On the following day they shake the trees, and clank their keys, while the church bells are ringing, under the impression that the more noise they make the more fruit will they get. Traces, too, of tree-worship, adds Mr. Ralston,[28] may be found in the song which the Russian girls sing as they go out into the woods to fetch the birch tree at Whitsuntide, and to gather flowers for wreaths and garlands:

  "Rejoice not, oaks;
  Rejoice not, green oaks.
  Not to you go the maidens;
  Not to you do they bring pies,
  Cakes, omelettes.
  So, so, Semik and Troitsa [Trinity]!
  Rejoice, birch trees, rejoice, green ones!
  To you go the maidens!
  To you they bring pies,
  Cakes, omelettes."

The eatables here mentioned probably refer to the sacrifices offered in olden days to the birch—the tree of the spring. With this practice we may compare one long observed in our own country, and known as "wassailing." At certain seasons it has long been customary in Devonshire for the farmer, on the eve of Twelfth-day, to go into the orchard after supper with a large milk pail of cider with roasted apples pressed into it. Out of this each person in the company takes what is called a clome—i.e., earthenware cup—full of liquor, and standing under the more fruitful apple trees, address them in these words:

  "Health to thee, good apple tree,
  Well to bear pocket fulls, hat fulls,
  Peck fulls, bushel bag fulls."

After the formula has been repeated, the contents of the cup are thrown at the trees.[29] There are numerous allusions to this form of tree-worship in the literature of the past; and Tusser, among his many pieces of advice to the husbandman, has not omitted to remind him that he should,

  "Wassail the trees, that they may bear
  You many a plum and many a pear;
  For more or less fruit they will bring,
  As you do them wassailing."

Survivals of this kind show how tenaciously old superstitious rites struggle for existence even when they have ceased to be recognised as worthy of belief.

Footnotes:

1. "Outlines of Primitive Belief," 1882, p. 54.

2. "Tree and Serpent Worship."

3. See Sir John Lubbock's "Origin of Civilisation," pp. 192-8.

4. Fortnightly Review, "The Worship of Animals and Plants," 1870, vii. 213.

5. Ibid., 1869, vi. 408.

6. "Principles of Sociology," 1885, i. p. 359.

7. "The Origin of Civilisation and Primitive Condition of Man."

8. Quarterly Review, cxiv. 212.

9. Keary's "Primitive Brlief," pp. 332-3; Edinburgh Review, cxxx. 488-9.

10. "Du Culte des Dieux Fetiches," p. 169.

11. "Primitive Belief," pp. 332-3.

12. Fergusson's "Tree and Serpent Worship," p. 16.

13. cxxx. 492; see Tacitus' "Germania," ix.

14. See Edinburgh Review, cxxx. 490-1.

15. Edinburgh Review, cxxx. 491.

16. Mr. Fergusson's "Tree and Serpent Worship." See Edinburgh Review, cxxx. 498.

17. See Lewin's "Hill