Note 24 — Chapter XI · Tree-, Herb-, and Stone-lore

The reference to the date stone is of special interest. In Babylonia and Assyria the date palm was one of the holy trees. It was cultivated in southern Persia, and may have been introduced into China from that quarter. Another possibility is that the seeds were got from dates carried by Arab traders to China, or obtained from Arabs by Chinese traders. One of the Chinese names for the date resembles the Ancient Egyptian designation, bunnu. Laufer, who discusses this problem,24 refers to early Chinese texts that make mention of Mo-lin, a distant country in which dark-complexioned natives subsist on dates. Mo-lin, earlier Mwa-lin, is, Laufer thinks, “intended for the Malindi of Edrīsī or Mulanda of Yãqūt, now Malindi, south of the Equator, in Seyidieh Province of British East Africa”. The lore connected with other Trees of Life in China appears to have been transferred to the imported date palm. One of its names is “jujube of a thousand years”, or “jujube of ten thousand years”. Laufer quotes a Chinese description of the date palm which emphasizes the fact that it “remains ever green”, and tells that “when the kernel ripens, the seeds are black. In their appearance they resemble dried jujubes. They are good to eat, and as sweet as candy.”25