ANNUAL MEETING AT SAGINAW. 489 



used interchan2;eably, but in a way that makes nearly all the information 

 applicable to the latter idea — that of superstitious notions. 



At a certain stage of advancement all people seem to have been tree 

 ■worshipers^ but the religious notions have been replaced by superstitious 

 notions, and afterward by the folk lore of the ignorant and the mythological 

 stories of the poet. In the present enlightened condition of civilized man, 

 he attributes the various phenomena of nature to light, heat, electricity, to 

 chemical action, to gravity, and to other natural laws. In the primitive con- 

 dition of uncultured man his ideas are vague and crude. The notion that 

 to ghosts and sr)irits and supernatural beings may be attributed all the phe- 

 nomena of nature, is almost universal. Such phenomena are looked upon as 

 the soul of nature working out the actions of nature, as the human soul works 

 the human body. It throws up the fire from the volcano, uproots the forest 

 in the tornado, spins the canoe around in the whirlpool or dashes it upon the 

 rocks in the rapids, and, inhabiting the trees, causes them to bud and blossom, 

 to increase in size and tower into the awe inspiring monarchs of the forest. 

 It is these early theories of life and its phenomena which have filled the world 

 with the religious and superstitious notions in regard to plants and trees. 

 Savage nations still hold to them, and many of the common people of civil- 

 ized and enlightened nations are still influenced by them. Among the more 

 enlightened and educated, physical science has superseded the old nature 

 spirits and given them a place only in fairy tales and poetry. 



In parts of the world where Hindu influence has prevailed the doctrine of 

 transmigration of souls has given rise to many queer notions and observances. 

 We hear among the Dayaks of Borneo of the human soul entering the trunks 

 of trees where it may be seen, damp and blood-like, but no longer personal 

 and sentient. The Santals of Bengal fancy that uncharitable men and 

 childless women are eaten eternally by worms, while the good enter inta 

 fruit-bearing trees thus to bless mankind. The Brahmins of the Coromandel 

 coast are described as eating fruit, but being very careful not to uproot the 

 plant on which it grows lest they may dislodge a human soul. These notions 

 are not confined entirely to Hindu countries at the present time, and in 

 ancient times prevailed to some extent in Greece and Rome. On Loch Slant 

 in the Isle of Skye is an oakwood which is considered too sacred to have a 

 twig broken from it. Wherever a solitary cedar comes up in the midst of a 

 grove of firs, or a clump of seven larches is found, the Samoyed approaches 

 the spot with religious awe. The Ostiak deems the tree sacred whereon an 

 eagle has built her nest for several successive seasons. No twig of the grove 

 of the Munda Khol, a tribe of India, can be broken. On the other side of 

 the Jordm trees may still be seen on which sacrificial gifts are hung. 



In Africa the huge Baobab receives the offerings of the devout, and in 

 Burmah the same custom prevails with the banyan. Taylor speaks of a 

 sacred cypress worshiped in Mexico, Mollhousen of a great oak in western 

 Colorado, Darwin and others speak of an ash at the outlet of Lake Supe- 

 rior, to which the Ojibways formerly brought their offerings. A pine tree 

 upon Grand river was the divinity of one of the Ojibways, who came annu- 

 ally with his family to offer it gifts of corn. The African wood cutter who 

 has struck the first blow upon a tree with an ax pours in some palm oil, so 

 that while the tree-god stops to lick up the oil the wood cutter may run 

 away for his life. The ancient Greeks peopled every grove with nymphs, and 

 fancied them coming up to the councils of the gods and sitting in the pol- 



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