^afeufou/ ©Faat/". 117 



rata) had become simple tenders of flocks, Kama, their illegitimate 

 brother, wishing to deprive them of these their last resource, prayed 

 the gods to assist him : then he struck the earth with his staff, 

 which was fashioned from the branch of a tree. The staff instantly 

 opened, and out of it sprang a man, who said that his name was 

 Khat, a word which signifies " begotten of wood." Kama employed 

 this tree-man to steal the coveted cattle, and the Khatties claim to 

 be descended from this strange forefather. 



The traditions of trees that brought forth human beings, and 

 of trees that were in themselves partly human, are current among 

 most of the Aryan and Semitic races, and are also to be found 

 among the Sioux Indians. These traditions (which have been pre- 

 viously noticed in Chapter VII.) have probably given rise to 

 others, which represent certain trees as bearing for fruit human 

 beings and the members of human beings. 



In the fourteenth century, an Italian voyager, Odoricus du 

 Frioul, on arriving at Malabar, heard the natives speaking of trees 

 which, instead of fruit, bore men and* women : these creatures were 

 scarcely a yard high, and their nether extremities were attached to 

 the tree's trunk, like branches. Their bodies were fresh and radiant 

 when the wind blew, but on its (Sfe'opping, they became gradually 

 withered and dried up. 



In the first book of the Mahdbhdrata, reference is made, in the 

 legend of Garuda, to an enormous Indian Fig-tree [Ficus religiosa), 

 from the branches of which are suspended certain devotees of 

 dwarfed proportions, called Vdlakhilyas. 



Among the Arabs, there exists a tradition of an island in the 

 Southern Ocean called W'ak-Wak, which is so-named because certain 

 trees growing thereon produce fruit having the form of a human 

 head, which cries Wak ! Wak ! 



Among the Chinese, the myth of men being descended from 

 trees is reversed, for we find a legend current in the Flowery Land 

 that, in the beginning, the herbs and plants sprang from the hairs 

 of a cosmic giant. 



The Chinese, however, preserve the tradition of a certain lake 

 by whose margin grew great quantities of trees, the leaves of which 

 when developed became changed into birds. In India, similar 

 trees are referred to in many of the popular tales : thus, in ' The 

 Rose of Bakavali " mention is made of a garden of Pomegranate- 

 trees, the fruit of which resembled earthenware vases. When 

 these were plucked and opened, out hopped birds of beautiful 

 plumage, which inunediately flew away. 



Pope Pius II., in his work on Asia and Europe, published 

 towards the end of the fifteenth century, states that in Scotland 

 there grew on the banks of a river a tree which produced fruits 

 •resembling ducks ; these fruits, when matured, fell either on the 

 river bank or into the water : those which fell on the ground 

 perished instantly ; those which fell into the water became turned 



