Note 20 — Chapter X · The Mother-goddess of China and Japan

The Egyptians imported incense-bearing trees from Punt to restore the “odours of the body” of the dead, and poured out libations to restore its lost moisture.20 “When”, writes Professor Elliot Smith, “the belief became well established that the burning of incense was potent as an animating force, and especially a giver of life to the dead, it naturally came to be regarded as a divine substance in the sense that it had the power of resurrection. As the grains of incense consisted of the exudation of trees, or, as the ancient texts express it, ‘their sweat’, the divine power of animation in course of time became transferred to trees. They were no longer merely the source of the life-giving incense, but were themselves animated by the deity, whose drops of sweat were the means of conveying life to the mummy.… The sap of trees was brought into relationship with life-giving water.… The sap was also regarded as the blood of trees and the incense that exuded as sweat.” As De Groot reminds us, “tales of trees that shed blood, and that cry out when hurt are common in Chinese literature (as also in Southern Arabia, notes Elliot Smith); also of trees that lodge, or can change into maidens of transcendent beauty.”21