Note 31.1 — Chapter VIII · THE LIFE-TOKEN IN TALE AND CUSTOM.

In the Popol Vuh, the twin divinities, Hun Ahpu and Xbalanque, whose birth I have already described in Chapter v., on starting for the realm of Xibalba to avenge their father’s death, plant each a cane in the midst of their grandmother’s dwelling, that she may know by its flourishing or fading whether they are alive or dead.31.1 According to a tradition of the province of Berri, in central France, a local saint, Honoré de Buzançais, who flourished at the end of the thirteenth century, in setting forth on a journey told his mother that, by means of a certain laurel which had been planted the day he was born, she would at any time be able to learn how he fared. The tree would languish if he were ill, and wither if he died. He was murdered, and the laurel withered at the same instant.31.2 On the island of Tahiti, a sacred tree, resembling the banian of India, was said to have shot forth a new tendril at the birth of one of the kings whose inauguration is described by Ellis; and this branch reached the ground when the inauguration took place.31.3 So Suetonius tells us that thrice when the mother of the Emperor Vespasian gave birth to a boy a certain ancient oak-tree belonging to the Flavian gens and sacred to Mars put forth a new shoot; and when the Emperor himself was born the shoot was of such vitality that it grew to the size of the old trunk itself.31.4