Note 37.4 — Chapter VIII · THE LIFE-TOKEN IN TALE AND CUSTOM.

Nor is it only at a birth that the life-token is planted. Among the English-speaking population on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, when one of a family leaves home, a bit of live-for-ever is stuck in the ground to indicate the fortune of the absent one. It will flourish if he prosper; otherwise it will wither or die.37.4 An Italian work falsely attributed to Cornelius Agrippa gives the following prescription for divining the health of a person far distant: Gather onions on the Eve of Christmas, and put them on an altar, and under every onion write the name of one of the persons as to whom information is desired. When planted, the onion that sprouts the first will clearly announce that the person whose name it bears is well.38.1 In the north-east of Scotland, when potatoes were dug for the first time in the season a stem was put for each member of the family, the father first, the mother next, and the rest in order of age. Omens of the prosperity of the year were drawn from the number and size of the potatoes growing from each stem.38.2 Every Roman emperor solemnly planted on the Capitol a laurel, which was said to wither when he was about to die. It was the custom, too, of a successful general at his triumph to plant in a shrubbery set by Livia a laurel which was believed to fade after his death.38.3 Marco Polo records that the Great Khan planted the highways through his realm with rows of trees, for the purpose of marking the roads; and that he did it all the more readily because his astrologers and diviners told him that he who planted trees lived long.38.4 Why, unless his life were bound up with the trees he planted? In British Guiana, when young children are betrothed, as is the custom among the aborigines, trees are planted by the respective parties in witness of the contract. If either tree happen to fade, the child it belongs to will die.39.1 The custom exists also in Germany. At Hochheim, Einzingen, and other places in the neighbourhood of Gotha, a bridal pair plants at the wedding, or shortly after, two young trees on the land of the commune. If either of the trees perish, the spouse who planted it will shortly die.39.2 “On certain occasions the Dyaks of Borneo,” says Mr. Frazer, quoting Professor Wilken, “plant a palm-tree, which is believed to be a complete index of their fate. If it flourishes they reckon on good fortune, but if it withers or dies they expect misfortune.”39.3 What else than this can be the true meaning of the ceremony practised by some of the Australian blacks when a boy attains puberty? His two upper front teeth are knocked out, and his mother carefully inserts them in the fork of the topmost branches of a young gum-tree, which thereupon becomes taboo.39.4 The tree is not, indeed, newly planted, but, as in the Papuan practice cited just now, the boy’s fate is united with it. If a gipsy babe do not thrive in Transylvania, the mother drops a little of her own blood in its mouth, and rubs its saliva in the hole of a tree, repeating a rhyming formula adjuring the child to grow like that tree.40.1 When a child has been passed, for hernia or some other disease, through a young tree split for the purpose, the tree is forthwith bound up and plastered with mud or clay so that it may grow together again; and according as this treatment is successful on the tree, the child is expected to recover. This, I need hardly remind the reader, is a superstition very widely spread in Europe. In Mecklenburg, and most likely elsewhere, it is believed that if the tree be felled the child will die.40.2 So, too, among the Buryats of Siberia, a shaman on the eve of his first dedication cuts a magical stick from a growing birch. It must be of some size, since a horse’s head is required to be carved at the top, and a horse’s knee and hoof at the lower end. It must be so cut that the birch will not wither from the excision, for that would be an ill omen for the shaman.40.3 His life, or at least his professional success, is thus bound up with the life of the tree.