i62 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



A Chinese anecdote gives expression in very pointed 

 form to the belief which prompts the practice. " On 

 Mount Poh-mang there is the grave of the chaste 

 woman Li. Her husband having departed this life 

 she buried him and planted a couple of cypresses in 

 front of the tomb. After a while a cow bit off five inches 

 from the top of the left tree ; and when the woman 

 was informed of this she exclaimed : * The left one 

 \_z.e., that on the principal side] is my husband/ and 

 she ran to the grave. Wailing so bitterly that it was 

 painful to behold, she caressed the cypress, and ere 

 the night was gone it had grown up again as high as 

 the tree on the right hand side. After her death she 

 was buried in the same grave." In another story two 

 chestnut-trees planted on the grave of husband and 

 wife intertwine their branches, " a proof in the eyes of 

 the people that the souls of husband and wife . . . 

 had assimilated themselves each with one of those 

 trees." 1 In Fiji, if a family lose three young children 

 successively a banana is planted on the tomb of the 

 last buried. 2 The missionary who reports this custom 

 suggests that the banana is a sacrifice to the ancestral 

 manes who came to eat the children. It is more 

 likely to be attributable to the belief we are dis- 

 cussing. On the island of Ceram the wives of the 

 deceased plant a tree (usually the Pavetta Indicd) 

 on the grave, probably for the same reason. 3 Among 

 the Gallas of Abyssinia aloe is planted upon the 

 grave ; and if it grow it is taken as a sign that 

 the dead man is happy. 4 A German practice is 



1 De Groot, op. cit. ii. 469, 467. 2 Anthropos, ii. 74. 



8 Bastian, Indonesien, i. 149. 



4 Krapf, Reisen in Ost-Afrika (Stuttgart, 1858), i. 102, 



