360 DICTIONARY OF POPULAR NAMES SACRED 



same places [see Lotos], mucli like a rose, with a certain fruit 

 found at the foot-^ of the stem, in form not unlike a wasp's nest, 

 and covered with a pellicule, containing divers kernels of the size 

 of an olive stone, which are eaten either tender or dried." 

 Although the above description is brief, it is nevertheless suffi- 

 cient to prove that Nelumhium grew in the Nile in the time of 

 Herodotus, and even as late as the time of Dioscorides (about 

 A.D. 50), who calls it Cy amies, and by some writers it is called 

 Lotus Plant. Since then it has entirely disappeared from the 

 Lower Nile. 



Its worship is by no means confined to the ancient 

 Egyptians, for in India, Tibet, China, and Japan, the plant 

 was deemed sacred, and indeed it is still employed in religious 

 invocations and ceremonies. The leaf-stalks abound in spiral 

 fibres, which are carefully extracted and made into wicks to 

 burn before their idols, and its leaves are used as plates on which 

 offerings are placed. Its farinaceous rhizomes form an import- 

 ant article of food both in India and China. 



Sacred Trees. — Anions^ the uncivilised nations of the earth 

 different kinds of trees in their respective countries are held 

 sacred, of which in India the well-known Peepul Tree (Ficus 

 religiosa) and the Banyan {F. hengalensis) are examples (whicli 

 see). Africa has several; one of special veneration is Kigelia 

 2nnnata, a tree of the Calabash family (Crescentiacese), found 

 from ISTubia on the north to Mozambique on the east, as far 

 south as Natal, and as Senegal and Guinea on the west, and 

 widely spread over the intermediate regions of these coun- 

 tries. It is a large-spreading, branched tree, with white bark 

 and winged opposite leaves, of a firm texture. The flowers 

 are borne on long-stalked panicles hanging from the main trunk 

 and branches. The fruit is gourd-like, often 2 to 4 feet long, 

 and from 5 to 8 inches broad, hanging from a stalk several 

 feet in length. It has a white corky rind filled with pulp, in 

 which are embedded a number of roundish seeds. In Nubia this 

 tree is held sacred, and the neiijroes celebrate their reli^iious 

 Instead of /oof it should have been toj) of flower-stem. 



