The Editor: Origin of the Date Pa 



POLLINATION OF THE PALM 



Conventional design of a type particularly frequent in the palace of Ashurnasirpal (883-859 

 B.C.) at Nimrud (Ninevah). While orientalists do not agree on the interpretation of 

 the figure, there is reason to believe that the winged deity represents the palm god, and 

 that he is holding in his right hand a male inflorescence, with which he is fecundating the 

 female flowers. Because of its dioeciousness, the palm early came to symbolize the repro- 

 ductive force of nature, for the vSemitic peoples, and thus assumed an important place in 

 their religion. After wSiret. (Fig. 8.) 



mystery of reproduction always oc- 

 cupies the minds of primitive peoples, 

 and here was a particularly striking 

 case, where the process of fecundation 

 could be watched, or even carried out 

 by the agency of man, and where the 

 difference in result, as the female was 

 or was not pollinated, was marked. 



The date palm, already valued as pro- 

 ducing the best food, and the "drink 

 of life," come to symbolize the creative 

 force of Nature, and the next step, de- 

 tails of which are not wholly clear to 

 us, led to its firm establishment as the 

 "tree of life," an object of actual wor- 

 ship — or at least, to its identification 



