Note 3 — Chapter II · TREE AND SERPENT WORSHIP.

Mr. Frazer has given a very careful analysis of this branch of popular religion.3 He shows that to the savage in general the world is animate and trees are no exception to the rule; he thinks they have souls like his own and treats them accordingly; they are supposed to feel injuries done to them; the souls of the dead sometimes animate them; the tree is regarded sometimes as the body, sometimes as the home of the tree spirit; trees and tree spirits give rain and sunshine; they cause the crops to grow; the tree spirit makes the herds to multiply and blesses women with offspring; the tree spirit is often conceived and represented as detached from the tree and even as embodied in living men and women.