Note 35.2 — Chapter VIII · THE LIFE-TOKEN IN TALE AND CUSTOM.

In other cases there appears no physical contact with the infant, or with the accompaniments of its birth, though the intention is plain. On the island of Bali, in the East Indies, a cocoa-palm is simply planted. It is called the child’s “Life-plant,” and is believed to grow up equally with him. When twins are born, in some Zulu tribes, the father plants two euphorbia-trees near the door of the hut. Among the Mbengas of Western Africa, when two babes are born on the same day, two trees of the same kind are planted, and the people dance round them. “The life of each of the children is believed to be bound up with the life of one of the trees; and if the tree dies, or is thrown down, they are sure that the child will die soon.” The life of a newborn child is united by some of the Papuans with that of the tree by driving a pebble into the bark. “This is supposed to give them complete mastery over the child’s life; if the tree is cut down, the child will die.”35.2 Among the Sakalava of Madagascar, a tree called Hàzomànitra (Fragrant Wood) is planted at the birth of a first child. This is said to be a witness that the father acknowledges it as his own.35.3 But had he not acknowledged it, the child must presumably have been put to death, so that this can hardly be the real reason. According to the Babylonian Talmud it was a Hebrew practice to plant a cedar at the birth of a boy, and a pine at the birth of a girl.36.1 On the New Marquesas Islands a breadfruit-tree is set apart for the use of every infant at its birth; or, if the parents be too poor to do this, a sapling is immediately planted. The fruit of the tree is taboo to every one save the child; even the parents dare not touch it.36.2 Among several European nations it is, or has been up to recent times, the custom to plant a tree at the birth of a child. When the poet Vergil was born, his parents are said to have planted a poplar, in the hope that, as that tree overtopped all the rest, their son’s greatness would outstrip all others’. Poplars are still set in the neighbourhood of Turin when a girl is born; and they become in after-years the maiden’s dower. In Switzerland an apple-tree is set for a boy, a pear or a nut for a girl; and it is believed that as the young tree flourishes, so will the child. In Aargau, in particular, it was the custom, not many years back, to plant a fruit-tree on the land of the commune for every infant that was born; and if a father were enraged with a son who was at a distance, and therefore out of his reach, he would go to the field and cut down the tree planted at his son’s birth.36.3 In England we still hear sometimes of trees being planted at a birth. Count de Gubernatis, I know not on what authority, asserts that there are families in Russia, Germany, England, France, and Italy, whose practice it is to plant at the birth of a child a fruit-tree, which is loved and tended with special care as the symbol of the child and of the child’s fate.37.1 Only thirty years ago it was the custom of the good folk of Liége to plant a tree in the garden when a child was born: a custom which, it seems, is still continued in some parts of Belgium.37.2 In the province of Canton, in China, although we are not informed that trees are planted on the like occasions, we seem to have a relic of some such practice in the superstition requiring a child’s fortune to be told, in order to ascertain the particular idol or tree to which he belongs. It is thought that a tree is planted in the spirit-world to represent the life in this world, “and that the child is as much the fruit of the tree as it is that of the womb.”37.3 It is difficult to see how such a thought could have originated, unless it were connected with the planting of a tree in this world when the babe was born.