128 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



husband and wife, mentally praying to Saint Magdalen, 

 embrace the first big oak-tree they find. It is said 

 there is only one tree in the forest capable of receiving 

 their prayers efficaciously: hence if their desires are 

 not granted it is easy to explain why they have 

 mistaken the tree. At Poligny in the Jura there is a 

 standing stone significantly said to be the petrified form 

 of a giant who attempted to ravish a girl. Young 

 women go and embrace it in order to obtain children. 1 

 These are a few only of many examples of the super- 

 stition recorded in France. If we might add to them 

 the cases in which girls perform similar rites to obtain 

 husbands (as to which we may suspect the original 

 object of the rite to have been the same) the list might 

 be greatly lengthened. Often both reasons are alleged 

 for the practice, married women following it for the. 

 one and unmarried women for the other. 2 A striking 

 analogy to the rite at Sainte Baume is performed by 

 the Maori women of the Tuho tribe. Certain trees 

 are associated in the popular mind with the navel- 

 strings of mythical ancestors. The power of making 

 women fruitful is ascribed to them and until lately the 

 navel-strings of all newborn children were hung on 

 their branches. Barren women embrace them and 

 according to whether they clasp them from the east 

 or the west side they conceive boys or girls. 3 



A variant ceremony of sliding down the stone 



1 Berenger-Feraud, Superst. ii. 182, 190. 



2 See Sebillot, F. L. France, iv., the chapters entitled Cultes et 

 Observances Megalithiques and Les Eglises. It should be added that 

 similar rites are performed for the cure of various diseases. 



3 W. Foy, Arch. Religionsw. x. 557, citing an article by W. H. 

 Goldie, on Maori Medical Lore in the Transactions of the New 

 Zealand Institute y 1904, 95. 



