CHAPTER XXIII: PLANT-WORSHIP.

§ 177. Whether produced by fasting, fever, hysteria, or insanity, any extreme excitement is, by savage and semi-civilized peoples, ascribed to a possessing spirit: this we saw in §§ 123—31. Similar is the interpretation of an unusual mental state caused by a nervous stimulant. It is thought that a supernatural being, contained in the solid or liquid swallowed, produces it.

Speaking of opium-eaters, Vámbéry says—“What surprised me most was that these wretched people were regarded as eminently religious, of whom it was thought that from their love to God and the Prophet they had become mad, and stupefied themselves in order that in their excited state they might be nearer the Beings they loved so well.” So, too, the Mandingoes intoxicate themselves to enter into relation with the godhead: the accompanying belief being that the exaltation experienced is a divine inspiration. This was the view definitely expressed by the Arafura (Papuan Islander) who, when told about the Christian God, said—“Then this God is certainly in your arrack, for I never feel happier than when I have drunk plenty of it.”

May we not hence expect certain derivative beliefs respecting plants which yield intoxicating liquors? Obviously; and our search for them will not be fruitless.

§ 178. As a typical case may be taken the worship of the Soma. This plant, represented as growing in certain Edition: current; Page: [356] mountains, as gathered by moonlight, and as drawn with ceremonies to the place of sacrifice, was crushed between stones, and its juice expressed and filtered. When fermented, the juice (in some places described as sweet) produced an intoxicating liquor which was drunk by the devotees, who, judging from the words, “a rishi, a drinker of the Soma,” were of the priestly class. The exhilarating effects of the beverage were attributed to inspiration by a supernatural being, who was therefore lauded and adored. In his essay on the subject, partly translated by Dr. Muir, Windischmann describes the Soma as “the holiest offering of the ancient Indian worship” (ii, 471); or, as Muir says, “the rishis had come to regard Soma as a god, and apparently to be passionately devoted to his worship.” Here, from the Sanscrit Texts of the latter writer, are passages showing the genesis of the belief. First may be placed some implying the exaltation caused by the fermented Soma-juice.

Not only the rishis are inspired by Soma, but also their deities. “The gods drink the offered beverage,” and are “thrown into a joyous intoxication.” Indra “performs his great deeds under its influence.” It is said—“We summon his soul [that of Varuna] with Soma.” Elsewhere the contained supernatural being is addressed personally.

How literal was the belief that by a draught of soma the drinker became possessed, is proved by the prayer—“Soma . . . do thou enter into us, full of kindness.” And then, showing how the resulting mental power was regarded as a divine afflatus, we have the passage in R. V. ix, 97, 7—“Uttering, like Uśanas, the wisdom of a sage, the god (Soma) declares the births of the gods.” Other passages, along with this deification of the Soma, join the belief that he is present in the beverage partaken of alike by the other gods and by men. Instance, in R. V. ix, 42, 2, the words—“This god, poured forth to the gods, with an ancient hymn, purifies with his stream.” Further, there are implied identifications of this supernatural being with a once-living person. One of the less specific in R. V. ix, 107, 7, runs—“A rishi, a sage, intelligent, thou (Soma) wast a poet, most agreeable to the gods.” In other places his identity is more specifically stated. Thus, in the Taittirīya Brāhmana, ii, 3, 10, 1, it is said—“Prajāpati created king Soma. After him the three Vedas were created.” And still more specific are the legends which describe king Soma as having wives, and narrate his disagreements with some of them. Much more exalted, however, is the character elsewhere given to him. “He is immortal, and confers immortality on gods and men;” “the creator and father of the gods;” “king of gods and men.” Yet along with this ascription of supreme divinity goes the belief that he is present in the Soma-juice. Here is a passage combining all the attributes:—

The origin of these conceptions dates back to a time when the Aryan races had not widely diverged; for like conceptions occur in the Zend-Avesta. Though instead of Soma, Edition: current; Page: [358] the name there used is Haoma, there is so general an agreement as to show identity of the plant and of the worship. Windischmann says the Haoma is “not a plant only, but also a powerful deity;” and also that “in both works (Zend-Avesta and Rig Veda) the conceptions of the god and the sacred juice blend wonderfully with each other.”

That certain plants yielding intoxicating agents are therefore supposed to contain supernatural beings, is a conclusion supported by other instances—that of the vine being one. Speaking of Soma as “the Indian Dionysus,” Dr. Muir quotes from the Bacchæ of Euripides certain passages showing analogous conceptions. Of Dionysus it is said:—

That the facts are to be thus interpreted is shown by certain allied but less developed beliefs found elsewhere. In Peru, tobacco “has been called the sacred herb”—a nervous stimulant was regarded with reverence. Similarly with another plant which has an invigorating effect, coca. “The Peruvians still look upon it [coca] with feelings of superstitious veneration. In the time of the Incas it was sacrificed to the Sun, the Huillac Umu, or high priest, chewing the leaf during the ceremony.” Among the Chibchas, too, hayo (coca) was used as an inspiring agent by the priests; and certain people chewed and smoked tobacco to produce the power of divination. In North Mexico, a kindred notion is implied by the fact that some of the natives “have a great veneration for the hidden virtues of poisonous plants, and believe that if they crush or destroy one, some harm will happen to them.” And at the present time in the Philippine Islands, the Ignatius bean, which contains strychnia and is Edition: current; Page: [359] used as a medicine, is worn as an amulet and held capable of miracles.*

§ 179. The attribution to a plant of a human personality, and the consequent tendency towards worship of the plant, has other origins. Here is one of them.

In § 148, after giving some extracts from the cosmogony of the Amazulu, including the statement that Unkulunkulu, their creator, descended from a reed, or a bed of reeds, I cited the interpretation of Bp. Callaway: remarking that we should hereafter find a more natural one. This more natural one is not derivable from traditions furnished by the Amazulu alone; but comparison of their traditions with those of neighbouring races discloses it.

Already it has been shown that in South Africa, as in other parts of the world, stories obviously descending from ancestral troglodytes, refer to caves as places of creation. Instances before given may be supported by others. Respecting the Bechuanas, Moffat says—

Again, the beliefs of the Basutos are thus given by Casalis:—

And now observe the unexpected way in which these two traditions of the Basutos are reconciled with one another, as well as with the traditions of the Bechuanas and the Amazulu. Here is a passage from Arbousset and Daumas:—

So that these several statements refer to the same place—the place where Unkulunkulu “broke off in the beginning”—where he “broke off the nations from Uthlanga” [a reed]—where the tribes separated (the word used means literally to separate). And while in some traditions the cave became dominant, in others the surrounding bed of reeds was alone recollected. Men came out of the reeds—men descended from reeds—men descended from a reed; became one form of the legend.

Among the Amazulu there seems no resulting worship of the reed; and as, worshipping their near ancestors, they Edition: current; Page: [361] do not worship their remotest ancestor Unkulunkulu, it is consistent that they should not worship the plant whence he is said to have proceeded. Another South African race, however, worship a plant similarly regarded as an original ancestor. Of the Damaras, Galton tells us “a tree is supposed to be the universal progenitor, two of which divide the honour” (Andersson says there are several). Elsewhere he adds—“We passed a magnificent tree. It was the parent of all the Damaras. . . . The savages danced round and round it in great delight.” In another place he thus gives the Damara creed:—“In the beginning of things there was a tree, . . . and out of this tree came Damaras, Bushmen, oxen, and zebras. . . . The tree gave birth to everything else that lives.” Unconnected with anything further, this appears to be an unaccountable belief. But a clue to the origin of it is yielded by the following note in Andersson’s Ngami. “In my journey to the Lake Ngami, . . . I observed whole forests of a species of tree called Omumborombonga, the supposed progenitor of the Damaras.” If, now, we make the reasonable supposition that these tribes descended from a people who lived in forests of such trees (and low types, as Veddahs, Juangs, and wild tribes in the interior of Borneo, are forest-twellers), we may infer that a confusion like that between a reed and a bed of reeds, originated this notion of descent from a tree.

The inference drawn from these two allied cases might be questionable were it unsupported; but it is supported by the inference from a much stronger case. Bastian tells us that the Congoese proper, according to their traditions, have sprung from trees; and we are also told that “the forest from which the reigning family of Congo originated, was afterwards an object of veneration to the natives.” Here, then, emergence from a forest is obviously confounded with descent from trees; and there is a consequent quasi-worship both of the forest and of its component tree: individual Edition: current; Page: [362] trees of the species being planted in their marketplaces.

On recalling the before-named fact, that even Sanscrit indiscriminately applies to the same process the words making and begetting; we shall not doubt that an inferior language will fail to maintain in tradition the distinction between emerging from a forest of trees of a certain kind and emerging from a certain kind of tree. Doubt, if any remains, will disappear when we come to sundry analogous cases of confusion between a locality whence the race came, and a conspicuous object in that locality, which so becomes the supposed parent of the race.

§ 180. Before passing to the third origin of plant-worship, which, like the third origin of animal-worship, is linguistic, I must remind the reader of the defects of language conducing to it, and exemplify some others.

According to Palgrave, “the colours green, black, and brown are habitually confounded in common Arabic parlance.” Hunter says “Santali, being barren of abstract terms, has no word for ‘time.’ ” The Kamschadales have “but one term for the sun and the moon,” and have “scarcely any names for fish or birds, which are merely distinguished by the moon in which they are the most plentiful.” Such instances strengthen the conclusion that undeveloped speech cannot express the distinction between an object and a person named after it.

But here let us observe that this inference need not be left in the form of an implication: it may be directly drawn. In early stages of linguistic progress there can exist no such word as name; still less a word for the act of naming. Even the ancient Egyptian language had not risen to the power of expressing any difference between “My name” and “I name or call.” Understood in the abstract, the word name is a symbol of symbols. Before a word can be conceived as a name, it must be thought of not simply as a sound associated Edition: current; Page: [363] with a certain object, but it must be thought of as having the ability to remind other persons of that object; and then this general property of names must be abstracted in thought from many examples, before the conception of a name can arise. If now we remember that in the languages of inferior races the advances in generalization and abstraction are so slight that, while there are words for particular kinds of trees, there is no word for tree, and that, as among the Damaras, while each reach of a river has its special title, there is none for the river as a whole, much less a word for river; or if, still better, we consider the fact that the Cherokees have thirteen verbs to express washing different parts of the body and different things, but no word for washing, dissociated from the part or thing washed; we shall see that social life must have passed through sundry stages, with their accompanying steps in linguistic progress, before the conception of a name became possible.

Inductive justification is not wanting. Unfortunately, in most vocabularies of the uncivilized, travellers have given us only such equivalents for our words as they contain: taking no note of the words we possess for which they have no equivalents. There is not this defect, however, in the vocabularies compiled by Mr. F. A. de Röepstorff. From these it appears that the tribes in Great Nicobar, in Little Nicobar, in Teressa, and in the Andaman Islands, have no words corresponding to our word name.

The inference, then, is inevitable. If there is no word for name, it is impossible for the narrators of legends to express the distinction between a person and the object he was named after. The results of the confusion we have now to observe in its relations to plant-worship.

§ 181. By the Tasmanians, “the names of men and women were taken from natural objects and occurrences around, as, for instance, a kangaroo, a gum-tree, snow, hail, thunder, the wind.” Among the Hill-tribes of India the Edition: current; Page: [364] like occurs: “Cotton” and “White Cotton” are names of persons among the Karens. Similarly in North America. Among Catlin’s portraits occur those of “The Hard Hickory” a Séneca warrior, Pshán-sháw (“the Sweet-scented grass”) a Riccarrée girl, Shée-de-a (“Wild Sage”) a Pawneepićt girl, Mongshóng-shaw (“the Bending Willow”) a Púncah woman. And in South America it is the same. The Arawaks have individuals known as “Tobacco,” “Tobacco-leaf,” “Tobacco-flower;” and by the ancient Peruvians one of the Yncas was called “Sayri,” a tobacco-plant.

On joining with these facts the fact that by the Pueblos, one of the several tribes into which they are divided is called the “Tobacco-plant race,” we cannot fail to recognize an effect of this naming after plants. Associated as this clan of Pueblos is with other clans named after the bear, the prairie-wolf, the rattle-snake, the hare, which have severally descended from men called after, and eventually identified with, these animals, the “Tobacco-plant race” has doubtless descended from one who was called after, and eventually identified with, the tobacco-plant. In like manner the “Reed-grass race,” of these same people, may be concluded to have had a kindred derivation; as also, among the tribes of the river Isánna, the “Mandiocca” race.

Now if an animal regarded as original progenitor, is therefore reverentially treated; so, too, may we expect a plant-ancestor will be: not, perhaps, so conspicuously, since the powers of plants to affect the fates of human beings are less conspicuous. But the idea of the sacredness of certain plants is likely thus to originate, and to generate quasi-religious observances.

A converse misinterpretation must here be noted. Already we have seen (§ 175) that by the Salish, the Nisquallies, the Yakimas, not only birds and beasts, but also edible roots are supposed to have had human ancestors; and the way in which misconstruction of names might lead to this supposition was indicated. But there exists a habit more Edition: current; Page: [365] specially conducing to beliefs of this class. With various peoples it is customary for the parent to take a name from the child, and to be known after its birth as father or mother of So-and-so: an instance was given in § 171, and the Malays and Dyaks furnish others. Now if the child has either an animal-name or a plant-name, the literal rendering in tradition of the statement that a certain man was “the father of the turtle,” or a certain woman “the mother of maize,” would lead to the belief that this animal or this plant had a human progenitor. In some cases a figurative use of these names of parenthood, leads in a still stranger way to the same error, and to many kindred errors. An individual is regarded as the producer, or generator, of some attribute by which he or she is distinguished; and is hence called the parent of that attribute. For example, Mason tells us of the Karens—

The Arabs have a like habit. Here then we have kinds of names which, misunderstood in after times, may initiate beliefs in the human ancestry not only of plants and animals, but of other things.

§ 182. An indirect proof that the attribution of spirits to plants, and the resulting plant-worship, have arisen in one or other of the ways shown, must be added.

Did plant-worship arise from an alleged primeval fetichism—were it one of the animistic interpretations said to result from the tendency of undeveloped minds to ascribe Edition: current; Page: [366] duality to all objects; there would be no explanation of the conceived shape of the plant-spirit. The savage thinks of the other-self of a man, woman, or child, as like the man, woman, or child, in figure. If, then, the conception of plant-spirits were, as alleged, sequent upon an original animism, preceding and not succeeding the ghost-theory, plant-spirits ought to be conceived as plant-shaped; and they ought to be conceived as having other attributes like those of plants. Nothing of the kind is found. They are not supposed to have any plant-characters; and they are supposed to have many characters unlike those of plants. Observe the facts.

In the East there are stories of speaking trees: to the indwelling doubles is attributed a faculty which the trees themselves have not. The Congo-people place calabashes of palm-wine at the feet of their sacred trees, lest they should be thirsty: they ascribe to them a liking not shown by trees, but treat them as they do their dead. In like manner the statement quoted by Sir J. Lubbock from Oldfield, who, at Addacoodah, saw fowls and many other things suspended as offerings to a gigantic tree; the statement of Mr. Tylor, who, to an ancient cypress in Mexico, found attached by the Indians, teeth and locks of hair in great numbers; the statement of Hunter that once a year, at Beerbhoom, the Santals “make simple offerings to a ghost who dwells in a Bela-tree;” unite to show that not the tree, but the resident being, is propitiated; and that this has characters utterly unlike those of a tree, and completely like those of a human being. Further, in some Egyptian wall-paintings, female forms are represented as emerging from trees and dispensing blessings.

Still more conclusive is the direct evidence. The Sarawak people believe men are sometimes metamorphosed into trees; and Low further says that the Land-Dyaks venerate certain plants, building small bamboo altars near them, to which is placed a ladder to facilitate the ascent of the spirits to the offerings, consisting of food, water, etc., placed on Edition: current; Page: [367] the altar on festive occasions. Equally specific is the conception of the Iroquois. By them the spirit of corn, the spirit of beans, the spirit of squashes, “are supposed to have the forms of beautiful females:” recalling the dryads of classic mythology, who, similarly conceived as human-shaped female spirits, were sacrificed to in the same ways that human spirits in general were sacrificed to. And then, lastly, we have the fact that by the Santals these spirits or ghosts are individualized. At their festivals the separate families “dance around the particular trees which they fancy their domestic lares chiefly haunt.”

Harmonizing with the foregoing interpretations, these facts are incongruous with the animistic interpretation.

§ 183. Plant-worship, then, like the worship of idols and animals, is an aberrant species of ancestor-worship—a species somewhat more disguised externally, but having the same internal nature. Though it develops in three different directions, there is but one origin.

The toxic excitements produced by certain plants, or by extracts from them, or by their fermented juices, are classed with other excitements, as caused by spirits or demons. Where the stimulation is agreeable, the possessing spirit, taken in with the drug, is regarded as a beneficent being—a being sometimes identified with a human original and gradually exalted into a divinity who is lauded and prayed to.

Tribes that have come out of places characterized by particular trees or plants, unawares change the legend of emergence from them into the legend of descent from them: words fitted to convey the distinction not being contained in their vocabularies. Hence the belief that such trees are their ancestors; and hence the regard for them as sacred.

Further, the naming of individuals after plants becomes a cause of confusion. Identification of the two in tradition can be prevented only by the use of verbal qualifications that are impossible in rude languages; and from the unchecked Edition: current; Page: [368] identification there arise ideas and sentiments respecting the plant-ancestor, allied to those excited by the animal-ancestor or the ancestor figured as human.

Thus the ghost-theory, supplying us with a key to other groups of superstitions, supplies us with a key to the superstitions constituting this group—superstitions otherwise implying gratuitous absurdities which we may not legitimately ascribe even to primitive men.