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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
to its branches. In Africa Mungo Park encountered a great tree called Neema Taba, "decorated with innumerable rags or scraps of cloth, which none presumed to pass without offering something," and the same custom has lately been reported from Madagascar. Similar observances prevailed amongst the Esthonians in Livonia, and are reported by Sir John Lubbock to be not yet extinct. Confining ourselves, however, to Asia, perhaps the earliest notice of the sort is the story of Hercdotus, that Xerxes, when marching on Greece, encountered in Lydia a plane tree so beautiful that he caused golden robes and ornaments to be hung over it, and placed a guard to watch it. The historian says this was "on account of its beauty," but it was probably also a sacred tree, such as was familiar to the Persians in their own land. Tabari, the Arabian annalist of the 9th century, relates that the people of Najrån in Yemen every year, on a certain day, assembled round a large date tree outside the city, hung it with rich garments, and offered prayers. In our own times Captain Conder (Tent Work in Palestine, vol. II. p. 233) says of the sacred oaks and terebinths named after the Sheikhs their owners, that "they are covered all over with rags tied to the branches, which are considered acceptable offerings". Sir John Chardin, the traveller in Persia of the 17th century, often mentions the sacred trees met with everywhere in Persia, called dirakht-fâzel excellent trees, stuck all over with nails for fastening on bits of garments. One very ancient plane he saw in the king's garden at Shiraz, to which the people used to come to pray under its shade, and hang amulets and shreds of garments on its branches. Mr. Schuyler, at the passage above referred to, also observes:-" Old trees, especially old mulberry trees, seem greatly venerated throughout Central Asia, and the older and deader they are the more bits of rag they have stuck on them." In remoter northern Asia Strahlenberg describes the idols of the Ostiaks on the rivers Irtysch and Obi as "roughly hewn pieces of wood hung over with rags," and the Jakuhti of Eastern Siberia as "hanging all manner of nick
On the East Coast of Africa most settlements have near them large ancient trees much venerated by the natives, who drive votive nails in them and suspend rags. European residents call them devil-trees. It is held highly dangerous to injure them. Capt. R. Burton tells a story of an English merchant who cut down one, and died soon after as well as four others of his family.
I have not met with any form of the custom in Aus
[JUNE, 1880.
nacks on their sacred trees," and Zaleski, in his Life on the Kirghiz Steppes, gives an account of a tree that strikingly recalls the solitary Patagonian rag-tree. He says that on the steppes between the Sea of Aral and the confluence of the Tchoni and Yâtch rivers, a distance of 310 miles, there is only one tree, a species of poplar, highly venerated by the Kirghizes, who go several miles out of their way to hang an article of their clothing on its branches, hence it is called Sinderich-agateh, i e. rag-tree. In the Indian Antiquary, vol. III. p. 35, I have mentioned what seems to me a variant of the custom where the Champaka and other trees round the ancient shrine of the Trimurti at the foot of the Animalei Mountains in Koimbatur, Madras Presidency, are thickly hung with sandals and shoes, many of huge size, evidently made for the purpose, suspended by pilgrims as thank-offerings, or in token of vows accomplished. Another more ghastly variant seems to be the practice of the Nâgås of Eastern India of hanging the skulls of enemies on the great trees in their villages. In China, pieces of gilt paper are hung upon trees in sacred places, and silken streamers are reported to be tied to trees in Lamasaries in Tibet.
This almost universal custom of tying rags to trees and bushes may be due to the desire of making some offering or recognition to an apprehended supernatural power or presence, and in its homeliest form is probably a survival of the gold robes and such costlier offerings as were made by Xerxes and the ancient Arabians. In many primitive nations it was customary to offer splendid gifts at funerals, and bury them with the dead, but such observances have always a tendency to change and lessen in value, and at last to be continued in imitations and temporary substitutes. Thus inferior pottery, evidently made for the purpose, is frequently found buried in barrows of a period when much better earthenware was made, and the Chinese, who once offered gold ornaments at ancestral tombs, are now content to make them in gilt paper. So rags and shreds may have taken the place of
tralia or the South Sea Islands, unless there be something analogous in the consecration by tabu," which is generally marked by small white flags stuck about tabued property." -Jarvis's Sandwich Islands, p. 56.
"Abraham's Oak," which figures much in middle age romance, was similarly decorated; it grew near Hebron, and was affirmed to be green since the days of Abraham. -Vide Lucan's Pharsalia, vol. I. P. 136.
