Pagan and Christian Creeds [32]
of angels; the Central Australian native believes bushes to be the abode of spirits which leap into the bodies of passing women and are the cause of the conception of children; Moses saw in the desert a bush (perhaps the mimosa) like a flame of fire, with Jehovah dwelling in the midst of it, and he put off his shoes for he felt that the place was holy; Osiris was at times regarded as a Tree-spirit[1]; and in inscriptions is referred to as "the solitary one in the acacia"-- which reminds us curiously of the "burning bush." The same is true of others of the gods; in the old Norse mythology Ygdrasil was the great branching World-Ash, abode of the soul of the universe; the Peepul or Bo-tree in India is very sacred and must on no account be cut down, seeing that gods and spirits dwell among its branches. It is of the nature of an Aspen, and of little or no practical use,[2] but so holy that the poorest peasant will not disturb it. The Burmese believe the things of nature, but especially the trees, to be the abode of spirits. "To the Burman of to-day, not less than to the Greek of long ago, all nature is alive. The forest and the river and the mountains are full of spirits, whom the Burmans call Nats. There are all kinds of Nats, good and bad, great and little, male and female, now living round about us. Some of them live in the trees, especially in the huge figtree that shades half- an-acre without the village; or among the fern-like fronds of the tamarind."[3]
[1] The Golden Bough, iv, 339.
[2] Though the sap is said to contain caoutchouc.
[3] The Soul of a People, by H. Fielding (1902), p. 250.
There are also in India and elsewhere popular rites of MARRIAGE of women (and men) to Trees; which suggest that trees were regarded as very near akin to human beings! The Golden Bough[1] mentions many of these, including the idea that some trees are male and others female. The well-known Assyrian emblem of a Pine cone being presented by a priest to a Palm-tree is supposed by E. B. Tylor to symbolize fertilization--the Pine cone being masculine and the Palm feminine. The ceremony of the god Krishna's marriage to a Basil plant is still celebrated in India down to the present day; and certain trees are clasped and hugged by pregnant women--the idea no doubt being that they bestow fertility on those who embrace them. In other cases apparently it is the trees which are benefited, since it is said that men sometimes go naked into the Clove plantations at night in order by a sort of sexual intercourse to fertilize them.[2]
[1] Vol. i, p. 40, Vol. iii, pp. 24 sq.
[2] Ibid., vol. ii, p. 98.
One might go on multiplying examples in this direction quite indefinitely. There is no end to them. They all indicate--what was instinctively felt by early man, and is perfectly obvious to all to-day who are not blinded by "civilization" (and Herbert Spencer!) that the world outside us is really most deeply akin to ourselves, that it is not dead and senseless but intensely alive and instinct with feeling and intelligence resembling our own. It is this perception, this conviction of our essential unity with the whole of creation, which lay from the first at the base of all Religion; yet at first, as I have said, was hardly a conscious perception. Only later, when it gradually became more conscious, did it evolve itself into the definite forms of the gods and the creeds--but of that process I will speak more in detail presently.
The Tree therefore was a most intimate presence to the Man. It grew in the very midst of his Garden of Eden. It had a magical virtue, which his tentative science could only explain by chance analogies and assimilations. Attractive and beloved and worshipped by reason of its many gifts to mankind--its grateful shelter, its abounding fruits, its timber, and other invaluable products--why should it not become the natural emblem of the female, to whom through sex man's worship is ever drawn? If the Snake has an unmistakable resemblance to the male organ in its active state, the foliage of the tree or bush is
[1] The Golden Bough, iv, 339.
[2] Though the sap is said to contain caoutchouc.
[3] The Soul of a People, by H. Fielding (1902), p. 250.
There are also in India and elsewhere popular rites of MARRIAGE of women (and men) to Trees; which suggest that trees were regarded as very near akin to human beings! The Golden Bough[1] mentions many of these, including the idea that some trees are male and others female. The well-known Assyrian emblem of a Pine cone being presented by a priest to a Palm-tree is supposed by E. B. Tylor to symbolize fertilization--the Pine cone being masculine and the Palm feminine. The ceremony of the god Krishna's marriage to a Basil plant is still celebrated in India down to the present day; and certain trees are clasped and hugged by pregnant women--the idea no doubt being that they bestow fertility on those who embrace them. In other cases apparently it is the trees which are benefited, since it is said that men sometimes go naked into the Clove plantations at night in order by a sort of sexual intercourse to fertilize them.[2]
[1] Vol. i, p. 40, Vol. iii, pp. 24 sq.
[2] Ibid., vol. ii, p. 98.
One might go on multiplying examples in this direction quite indefinitely. There is no end to them. They all indicate--what was instinctively felt by early man, and is perfectly obvious to all to-day who are not blinded by "civilization" (and Herbert Spencer!) that the world outside us is really most deeply akin to ourselves, that it is not dead and senseless but intensely alive and instinct with feeling and intelligence resembling our own. It is this perception, this conviction of our essential unity with the whole of creation, which lay from the first at the base of all Religion; yet at first, as I have said, was hardly a conscious perception. Only later, when it gradually became more conscious, did it evolve itself into the definite forms of the gods and the creeds--but of that process I will speak more in detail presently.
The Tree therefore was a most intimate presence to the Man. It grew in the very midst of his Garden of Eden. It had a magical virtue, which his tentative science could only explain by chance analogies and assimilations. Attractive and beloved and worshipped by reason of its many gifts to mankind--its grateful shelter, its abounding fruits, its timber, and other invaluable products--why should it not become the natural emblem of the female, to whom through sex man's worship is ever drawn? If the Snake has an unmistakable resemblance to the male organ in its active state, the foliage of the tree or bush is