Note 2 — Chapter II · TREE AND SERPENT WORSHIP.
Reading edition
According to Dr. Tylor,2 again, the worship depends upon man’s animistic theory of nature: “Whether such a tree is looked on as inhabited by its own proper life and soul, or as possessed like a fetish by some other spirit which has entered it or used it for a body, is often hard to determine. The tree may be the spirits’ perch or shelter (as we have seen in the case of the Churel or Râkshasa), or the sacred grove is assumed to be the spirits’ resort.”