When we examine more closely the spiritual beings who have been thought to haunt or inhabit vegetation, we find that they fall more or less distinctly into two classes—into tree-gods on the one hand, and on the other into the various tree-demons, wood-spirits, dryads, elves, jinns, and fabulous monsters common to the mythology of all countries. There is, perhaps, no absolutely definite line of demarcation between the two classes, for primitive thought does not deal in sharp definitions. But the division, besides being convenient for our present purpose, is a vital one. For a god is an individual spirit who enters into stated relations with man, is mostly if not invariably regarded as akin to his worshippers, and is presumably their friend, ally, and protector. Whereas the demon is an independent and, as a rule, not individualised spirit, without human kinship, and for the most part unfriendly to man. The god is to be revered, approached and called upon by name; the demon, as a rule, to be dreaded and shunned. The present chapter will be devoted to the belief in the tree-inhabiting god.
The conception of an ubiquitous, unconditioned spirit is entirely foreign to primitive thought. All the gods of antiquity were subject to physical limitations. Those even of Greece and Rome were by no means independent of a material environment. There was always some holy place or sanctuary, some grove, tree, stone, or fountain, or later on some temple or image, wherein the god was assumed to dwell, and through which he had to be approached. To Moses Jehovah is “He that dwelt in the bush,”[52] and centuries later Cyrus, while admitting that the Lord of Israel had made him king of the whole world, yet speaks of Him as “the Lord that dwelleth in Jerusalem.”[53] Very frequently, especially in early times, this home or haunt of the god was a tree; his ceremonial worship was conducted beneath its shadow, and the offerings of his worshippers were hung upon its branches, or placed at its foot, or upon a table by its side, and assumed thereby to have reached the god. Thus the sacred sycamores of Egypt were believed to be actually inhabited by Hāthor, Nu̔ît, Selkît, Nît, or some other deity, and were worshipped and presented with offerings as such. The vignettes in the Book of the Dead demonstrate this belief unmistakably. They frequently depict the soul on its journey to the next world coming to one of these miraculous sycamores on the edge of the terrible desert before it, and receiving from the goddess of the tree a supply of bread, fruit, or water, the acceptance of which made it the guest of the deity and prevented it from retracing its steps without her express permission. “O, sycamore of the Goddess Nu̔ît,” begins one of the chapters in the Book of the Dead, “let there be given to me the water which is in thee.” As a rule in the vignettes the bust of the goddess is represented as appearing from amidst the sheltering foliage, but sometimes only her arm is seen emerging from the leaves with a libation-bowl in the hand. The conception is illustrated still more clearly on an ancient sarcophagus in the Marseilles Museum, where the trunk from which the branches spread is represented as the actual body of the deity.[54]
Fig. 10.—The goddess Nu̔ît in her sacred sycamore bestowing the bread and water of the next world.
(Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation.)
Fig. 11.—Sacred tree of Dionysus, with a statue of the god and offerings.
(Bötticher, Fig. 24.)
As man’s conception of the deity became more definitely anthropomorphic on the one hand and less local on the other, this primitive representation of the god in the tree underwent a change in two corresponding directions. In the one case an attempt was made to express more clearly the manlike form of the god; the tree was dressed or carved in human semblance, or a mask or statue of the god was hung upon or placed beside it. In the other case, as the god widened his territory or absorbed other local gods he became associated with all trees of a certain class, and was assumed to dwell not in a particular tree, but in a particular kind of tree, which thenceforward became sacred to and symbolical of him. This latter idea received special development in the religions of Greece and Rome. But in the early history of both those countries cases occur in which a god was worshipped in an individual tree. At Dodona, which was perhaps the most ancient of all Greek sanctuaries, Zeus was approached as immanent in his sacred oak, and legendary afterthought explained the primitive ritual by relating that the first oak sprang from the blood of a Titan slain while invading the abode of the god, who thereupon chose it as his own peculiar tree. Again, in ancient Rome, according to Livy, Jupiter was originally worshipped in the form of a lofty oak-tree which grew upon the Capitol. The same was probably true of other gods at their first appearance. Amongst the Greeks, indeed, the tree was the earliest symbol or ἄγαλμα of the god, and as such is frequently represented on ancient vases, marble tablets, silver vessels, and wall-paintings. Indeed, the solitary tree standing in Attic fields and worshipped as the sacred habitation of a god was in all probability the earliest Greek temple, the forerunner of those marvellous edifices which have aroused the admiration of every subsequent age; whilst the elaborate worship of which those temples became the home was presumably based upon a ceremonial originally connected with the worship of the tree.
Fig. 12.—Sacred pine of Silvanus, with a bust of the god, and votive gifts represented by a bale of merchandise and a Mercury’s staff.
(Bötticher, Fig 18.)
According to Mr. Farnell, the latest writer on the subject, the chief gods of the Greeks were in their origin deities of vegetation, the special attributes which we associate with them being subsequent accretions. The pre-Hellenic Cronos gave his name to an Attic harvest-festival held in July, and his ancient emblem was the sickle.[55] Zeus, besides being the oak-god of Dodona, was worshipped in Attica as a god of agriculture and honoured with cereal offerings.[56] Artemis was not primarily a goddess of chastity, nor a moon-goddess, nor the twin-sister of Apollo, but an independent divinity, closely related to the wood-nymphs, and connected with water and with wild vegetation and forest beasts. She was worshipped in Arcadia as the goddess of the nut-tree and the cedar, and in Laconia as the goddess of the laurel and the myrtle. Her idol at Sparta was said to have been found in a willow brake, bound round with withies. At Teuthea in Achaea she was worshipped as the goddess of the woodland pasture, and at Cnidus as the nurturer of the hyacinth.[57] In the legend of the colonisation of Boiae she was represented as embodied in a hare which suddenly disappeared in a myrtle-tree.[58] But her character as a tree-goddess comes out still more clearly in the cult of the “hanging Artemis” at Kaphyae in Arcadia,[59] which no doubt grew out of the primitive custom of suspending a mask or image of the vegetation spirit to the sacred tree.