Note 15 — Chapter XVII · Culture Mixing in Japan

The oldest trees are the oak and pine, and they are therefore sacred, and the oldest and most sacred herb is the mugwort. In Kamschatka the pine is associated with the mugwort. The mugwort is connected with goddesses of the Artemis order.15 Sacred, too, was the willow, and specially sacred the mistletoe that grew on a willow tree. An elixir prepared from the mistletoe was supposed to renew youth, and therefore to prolong life and cure diseases. Siberians venerate the herb willow.16 The drink prepared from it was a soporific for human beings, wild animals, and deities. Far Eastern deities had apparently to be soothed as well as invoked as, it may be recalled, was Hathor-Sekhet in the Egyptian “flood myth”, when she was given beer poured out from jars, so that she might cease from slaughtering mankind.17