Part 2 (2/2)

5. See Max Miller's ”Chips from a German Workshop.”

6. See Keary's ”Outlines of Primitive Belief,” p. 64.

7. Book viii. p. 314.

8. ”Outlines of Primitive Belief,” p. 63.

9. Gifford.

10. Kelly's ”Indo-European Folk-lore,” p. 143.

11. Keary's ”Outlines of Primitive Belief,” p. 63; Fiske, ”Myth and Myth Makers,” 1873, pp. 64-5.

12. ”Primitive Belief,” p. 65.

13. Grimm's ”Teutonic Mythology,” i. 69.

14. _Quarterly Review_, 1863, cxiv. 214-15.

15. See Bunsen's ”The Keys of St Peter,” &c., 1867, p. 414.

16. ”Teutonic Mythology.”

17. Quoted by Mr. Keary from Leroux de Lincy, ”Le Livre des Legendes,” p. 24.

18. Gallon's ”South Africa,” p. 188.

19. ”Primitive Superst.i.tions,” p. 289.

20. Folkard's ”Plant Lore,” p. 311.

21. ”Indo-European Folk-lore,” p. 92.

22. Grimm's ”Teutonic Mythology,” ii. 672-3.

CHAPTER III.

PLANT-WORs.h.i.+P.

A form of religion which seems to have been widely-distributed amongst most races of mankind at a certain stage of their mental culture is plant-wors.h.i.+p. Hence it holds a prominent place in the history of primitive belief, and at the present day prevails largely among rude and uncivilised races, survivals of which even linger on in our own country.

To trace back the history of plant-wors.h.i.+p would necessitate an inquiry into the origin and development of the nature-wors.h.i.+pping phase of religious belief. Such a subject of research would introduce us to those pre-historic days when human intelligence had succeeded only in selecting for wors.h.i.+p the grand and imposing objects of sight and sense.

Hence, as Mr. Keary observes,[1] ”The G.o.ds of the early world are the rock and the mountain, the tree, the river, the sea;” and Mr.

Fergusson[2] is of opinion that tree-wors.h.i.+p, in a.s.sociation with serpent-wors.h.i.+p, must be reckoned as the primitive faith of mankind. In the previous chapter we have already pointed out how the animistic theory which invested the tree and grove with a conscious personality accounts for much of the wors.h.i.+p and homage originally ascribed to them--identified, too, as they were later on, with the habitations of certain spirits. Whether viewed, therefore, in the light of past or modern inquiry, we find scattered throughout most countries various phases of plant-wors.h.i.+p, a striking proof of its universality in days gone by.[3]

According to Mr. Fergusson, tree-wors.h.i.+p has sprung from a perception of the beauty and utility of trees. ”With all their poetry,” he argues, ”and all their usefulness, we can hardly feel astonished that the primitive races of mankind should have considered trees as the choicest gifts of the G.o.ds to men, and should have believed that their spirits still delighted to dwell among their branches, or spoke oracles through the rustling of their leaves.” But Mr. McLennan[4] does not consider that this is conclusive, adding that such a view of the subject, ”Does not at all meet the case of the shrubs, creepers, marsh-plants, and weeds that have been wors.h.i.+pped.” He would rather connect it with Totemism,[5] urging that the primitive stages of religious evolution go to show that, ”The ancient nations came, in pre-historic times, through the Totem stage, having animals, and plants, and the heavenly bodies conceived as animals, for G.o.ds before the anthropomorphic G.o.ds appeared;” While Mr. Herbert Spencer[6] again considers that, ”Plant-wors.h.i.+p, like the wors.h.i.+p of idols and animals, is an aberrant species of ancestor-wors.h.i.+p--a species somewhat more disguised externally, but having the same internal nature.” Anyhow the subject is one concerning which the comparative mythologist has, at different times, drawn opposite theories; but of this there can be no doubt, that plant-wors.h.i.+p was a primitive faith of mankind, a fact in connection with which we may quote Sir John Lubbock's words,[7] how, ”By man in this stage of progress everything was regarded as having life, and being more or less a deity.” Indeed, sacred rivers appear in the very earliest mythologies which have been recovered, and lingered among the last vestiges of heathenism long after the advent of a purer creed. As, too, it has been remarked,[8] ”Either as direct objects of wors.h.i.+p, or as forming the temple under whose solemn shadow other and remoter deities might be adored, there is no part of the world in which trees have not been regarded with especial reverence.

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