654 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the simple process of slaughtering a superfluous meriah at the 

 stone, exactly as in mediaeval Europe, and long before a guardian 

 spirit was provided for a bridge, a town wall, or any other im- 

 portant building, by immuring a human victim alive into the 

 solid masonry — a curious and horrible superstition to which I 

 shall have occasion to recur more fully further on in my argu- 

 ment. 



Rome herself had such a sacred foundation tree — the holy fig 

 of Romulus — whose very name connected it at once with the origin 

 of the city ; and so closely was it bound up in the popular mind 

 with the fortunes of the state, that the withering of its trunk was 

 regarded in the light of a public calamity. So, too, to this day, 

 London has still her London Stone, which probably dates back to 

 the earliest ages of the Roman town, or of the little Celtic village 

 that once preceded it. This London Stone was for ages considered 

 as the representative and embodiment of the entire community. 

 Proclamations and other important businesses of state were trans- 

 acted from its top ; the defendant in trials at the Lord Mayor's 

 court was summoned to attend from London Stone, as though 

 the stone itself spoke with the united voice of the assembled 

 citizens. Of the similar sacred stone at Bovey Tracey in Devon- 

 shire, Ormerod tells us that the mayor, on the first day of his ten- 

 ure of office, used to ride round it and strike it with a stick. Ac- 

 cording to the Totnes Times of May 13, 1882, the young men of 

 the town were compelled on the same day to kiss the magic stone, 

 and to pledge allegiance in upholding the ancient rights and priv- 

 ileges of Bovey.* In these two cases we can clearly observe that 

 stone and tree alike are regarded as the embodiment of the city, 

 town, or village ; and, as I believe, they derive their sanctity from 

 the foundation god or spirit, who, as I shall have occasion to show 

 hereafter, was probably killed on the spot, to provide a specific or 

 artificial deity for the new creation. 



Elsewhere we get still clearer evidence that it is the ghost, not 

 the mere tree, to whom the adoration of the worshipers is pri- 

 marily offered. " A clump of larches on a Siberian steppe," says 

 Mr. Tylor, "is the chosen sanctuary of a Turanian tribe. But 

 beneath it stand gayly decked little idols in warm fur coats, each 

 set up under a great tree, on whose branches hang offerings of 

 reindeer hides and household goods." f Clearly these idols repre- 

 sent the ancestral spirits protected from the rigor of the climate, 

 as in life, by their thick fur coverings, and supplied by their 

 relations with all that is necessary to make existence comfort- 



* See Gomme, Village Community, p. 218; Ormerod, Archaeology of Eastern Dartmoor, 

 p. 1 1 ; and an article on London Stone by myself in Longman's Magazine, 

 f Primitive Culture, vol. ii, p. 224. 



