Cultus Arborum

Chapter 3

Arab Tree Worship-Story of Kaimun, the Captive Slave-Miracle of the Date Tree-Persian Bushes-Plane Tree-The Great Cypress-The Old Man of Diarbekir-The Fero ers-Anecdote of Xerxes-Anecdote of a Merchant and his Wife-The Bush of the “Excellent Tree”-The Cypresses of Zoroaster-Motawakel-The Triple Tree of Abraham-Tree of the Club of Hercules-The Tree Menelais-The Tree of Passienus Crispus-The Virgin Mary’s Fig Tree-Tree of Mohammed’s Staff-The Neema Tree of the Gallas-Irish Superstitions-Saint Valeri-People of Livonia-Destruction of a Sacred Tree.

Among the Pagan Arabs of a very early date according to Ousley, was a tree worshipped by certain tribes as an idol, under the name of Aluzza or Alozza, according to original authority, cited by the learned Pococke. This is said to have been the Egyptian Thorn or Acacia, a reference to which is found in the Preliminary Discourse to Sale’s translation of the Koran. “Al Uzza, as some affirm, was the idol of the tribes of Koreish and Kenanah, and part of the tribe of Salim; others tell us it was a tree called the Egyptian Thorn or Acacia, worshipped by the tribe of Ghatsan, first consecrated by one Dhalem, who built a chapel over it called Boss, so contrived as to give a sound when any person entered.”

The manuscript chronicle of Tabri, written in the ninth century, says that the people of Najr n (in Yemen or Arabia Felix) had been idolaters, like all the neighbouring tribes, until a remarkable event induced them to embrace Christianity. “And they had,” says he, “outside the city, a date tree of considerable base; and every year on a certain day, they held a solemn festival; and on that day all the people assembled round the tree, and they covered it with garments of rich embroidery, and brought all their idols under it; and they went in ceremonious procession about that tree, and offered up prayers, and an evil spirit or devil spoke to them from the midst of it, and they having paid reverence to that tree, returned. It afterwards happened,” continues the historian, “that a man of Syria, named Kaimun, a descendant from the Apostles of Jesus, came into Arabia, fell among thieves, was taken and sold as a slave in the land of Najr n. Here his master surprised him at midnight, reading the Gospel by a ray of celestial light, which illuminated the whole house, and Kaimun soon after, through divine assistance, caused the tree which had been worshipped as a divinity, to come forth, root and branch, from the earth; such a miracle effected an instantaneous conversion of the people, who destroyed all their idols and became zealous disciples of Jesus.”

“Whatever circumstances in this anecdote may appear marvellous, there is little reason to doubt that a tree was once among the objects of idolatrous veneration at Najr n; and as we learn from authentic history, the people of that place were cruelly persecuted for their adherence to Christianity, by Dh Nawa’s, also named Yusef (Joseph), a prince of the Jewish religion, who reigned in the sixth century; about seventy years before Mahommed. That the ancient Arabians practised pagan rites, we learn from Zakaria Cazvini, who wrote in the thirteenth century. They observed, says he, at first, the religion of Abraham, but afterwards sunk into gross idolatry; some worshipping a stone, and some a tree. He then relates the story of that tree-idol, Aluzza, above mentioned, with a slight variation of circumstances, not claiming particular notice.”

The trees and bushes which the modern Persians regard with particular respect, have been noticed by most travellers in that country. Mr. Morier, in his journey through Persia in the years 1808-9 (vol. I., p. 230), says that according to superstitious belief, the rags deposited on certain bushes by persons suffering from diseases, and taken thence by other patients, who in turn substitute their own, prove an infallible remedy. In his second volume also (p. 239), he mentions the tomb of some Persian saint, and growing close to it, a small bush on which were fastened various rags and shreds of garments; these, as was generally fancied, had acquired from their vicinity to the saint, virtues peculiarly efficacious against sickness.

In the eighteenth century, it was remarked by Chardin at Ispahan, that the religious Mahommedans chose rather to pray under a very old tree than in the neighbouring mosque. They devoutly reverence, says he, those trees which seem to have existed during many ages, piously believing that the holy men of former times had prayed and meditated under their shade.

He noticed also at Ispahan a large and ancient plane, all bristling with nails and points, and hung with rags as votive offerings from dervishes, who, like monks of the Latin church, were professed mendicants, and came under the tree to perform their devotions. He next describes another plane, said to be in his time above one thousand years old; it was black with age, and preserved with extreme care. This attention, adds he, arises from a superstitious respect entertained by the Persians for those ancient trees already mentioned. They call them Dracte fasel, or the excellent trees, venerating them as having been miraculously preserved by God so many years, because they had afforded shade and shelter to his faithful servants, the Dervishes and others professing a religious life. Another plane, one of these excellent trees, held in veneration, to which the devout resorted, is then described by this celebrated traveller (tome VIII., p. 187). One, also, at Shir z, to which they tied chaplets, amulets, and pieces of their garments; while the sick (or some friends for them) burned incense, fastened small lighted tapers to the tree, and practised other superstitions in hopes of thereby restoring health. Throughout all Persia, adds Chardin, these Dracte fasels are venerated by the multitude, and they appear all stuck over with nails used in fixing in them shreds of clothes and other votive offerings. Under their shade the pious love to repose whole nights, fancying they behold resplendent lights, the souls of Aoulia or blessed saints, who had under the same trees performed their devotions. To those spirits, persons afflicted with tedious maladies devote themselves; and if they recover, the cure is attributed to their influence and proclaimed a miracle.

The plane trees of Persia, the reverence paid to them as divinities, and the worship accorded them on account of their great age, are mentioned also by others, notably by Father Angelo, who resided in the country for a considerable period.

Ousley says-“Pietro della Valle, in 1622, celebrated the great Cypress of Passa, anciently Pasagarda according to the general opinion; and, nearly two hundred years after, I beheld this beautiful tree with admiration equal to that expressed by the Italian traveller. He mentions that it was regarded with devotion by the Mahomedans; that tapers were often lighted in the capacious hollow of its trunk, as in a place worthy of veneration; the people respecting large and ancient trees, supposing them to be frequently the receptacles of blessed souls, and calling them on that account, Pir or ‘aged,’ a name equivalent to the Arabic Sheikh; also Im m, signifying a priest or pontiff; so they entitle those of their sect whom they imagine to have died in the odour of sanctity. Therefore when they say that such a tree or such a place is a Pir, they mean that the soul of some holy elder, a venerable personage whom they believe blessed, delights to reside in that tree or to frequent that spot. This most excellent traveller then observes that the veneration paid to trees may be considered as a remnant of ancient paganism, and aptly quotes various lines from Virgil in confirmation thereof.”

Similar testimony to the above is supplied by Barbaro, who, two centuries before Chardin and Angelo, when travelling through Persia observed thornbushes to which were attached great numbers of old rags and scraps of garments, supposed to be efficacious in banishing fevers and other disorders.

“Whatever suspicion,” says Ousley, “may be excited by this practice” we are discussing, “it is certain that the Mahommedans shudder at any imputation of idolatry, and fancy that in their addresses or offerings to those trees, they only invoke the true God, the great Creator. This will appear from an anecdote related by Saadi, who was born in the twelfth and lived during most part of the thirteenth century, eminent among Persian poets and philosophers. It occurs in the sixth chapter of his Gulistan, or Rose Garden, a work which has been published in various European languages, and so well translated into English by Mr. Gladwin, that I shall borrow his words upon this occasion, as it would be unnecessary and presumptuous to substitute my own. ‘In the territory of Diarbeker I was the guest of a very rich old man, who had a handsome son. One night he said, ‘during my whole life I never had but this son. Near this place is a sacred tree, to which men resort to offer up their petitions. Many nights I besought God until he bestowed on me this son.’ I heard that the son was saying to his friends in a low tone of voice, how happy should I be to know where that tree grows, in order that I might implore God for the death of my father.’”

“It seems probable that the early Muselmans who invaded Iran or Persia in the seventh century, found this invocation of trees established there from ages long elapsed, and that they soon adopted the popular superstition (if, indeed, some practices of the same or of a similar nature were not already frequent among themselves), reconciling it to their own faith, by addressing the Almighty, or, as we have seen, the intermediatory spirits of the saints. By the ancient Persians, especially those who professed Magism as reformed according to Zeratusht or Zoroaster, image-worship and other forms of gross idolatry, were held in as much abhorrence as afterwards by the Muselmans themselves; and they contemplated the Sun and its representative, material Fire, with veneration, merely as bright symbols of the sole invisible God. Yet in some of those sacred books which their descendants the Gabrs and Parsis attribute to Zeratusht himself (but which we may reasonably suppose were compiled in the third century, from fragments of ancient manuscripts and from tradition); it seems that trees were invoked as pure and holy, and that a form of prayer (izeshne) was particularly addressed to Fero ers, or spirits of saints through whose influence the trees grew up in purity, and which, placed above those trees as on a throne, were occupied in blessing them.

“From want of a more expressive term, I have called the Fero ers, ‘spirits,’ but it is not easy to describe by one word those imaginary creatures; for, at first, they existed singly; were then united to the beings which they represent, forming, as it would seem, part of their very souls; there are Fero ers of persons not yet born, although properly united only with rational beings, yet they are assigned to water and to trees (‘Les saints Fero ers de l’eau et des arbres.’-Zendav. II., p. 284). Some are described as females; all are immortal and powerful, but beneficent; pleased with offerings, they protect their votaries, and are prompt in carrying off the petitions of those who invoke them to the mighty Ormuzd.

“Here we find the supposed agency of preternatural beings, intermediate between man and his Creator; and to this I would ascribe an act of the great Xerxes which is represented as extraordinary and even ridiculous; but of which, in my opinion, the motive has not been rightly understood.

“To Xerxes I have already alluded as the Persian king, who, almost five centuries before our era, although he may have worshipped God under the symbol of Fire or of the Sun, appears as if willing to propitiate some invisible superhuman power, by offerings suspended from the branches of a tree, in which he believed it resident.

“The anecdote is first related by Herodotus, and in such a manner as leaves but little doubt of its authenticity. The fact which it records I hope to prove conformable with Persian usage and opinion. But many circumstances are related of Xerxes by the Greek writers, which can scarcely be reconciled to probability. Xerxes, according to that venerable historian above-named, having come from Phrygia into Lydia, arrived at a place where the road branched off, leading on the left towards Caria, on the right to Sardis. Those who travel by this road, says he, must necessarily cross the river M nder, and pass the city of Callatebos, wherein dwell confectioners, who compose sweetmeats of tamarish-honey and wheat. Xerxes, proceeding on this road found a plane tree, which on account of its beauty he decorated with golden ornaments; and leaving to guard it one of his troops, called the Immortals, advanced on the next day to Sardis, the chief city of the Lydians.

“This anecdote is related with an amplification of circumstances, and his own comments, by lian, who ridicules the Persian monarch because, having undertaken a very important expedition, he pitched his camp and delayed a whole day in a desert of Lydia, that he might pay homage to a great plane tree, on the branches of which he hung rich garments, bracelets, and other precious ornaments; and left a person to guard it, as if the tree had been a beloved mistress; such is the sum of lian’s words. He does not impute this act of Xerxes (although it wore a semblance of worship) to any religious or superstitious motive, but to an absurd admiration of the tree, an inanimate object, on which from its very nature, says he, neither the gold nor splendid garments, nor the other gifts of that barbarian, could confer any benefit or additional beauty.

“To the same story lian alludes again, in a chapter recording instances of strange and ridiculous love; and it is noticed by Eustathius in his commentary on Homer.

“But these Greek writers could scarcely have suspected the true motive of Xerxes in this act, since Herodotus, the very historian by whom it was first related, had described the Persian religion as incompatible with what would appear a kind of idolatry. Yet the reader has, perhaps, already seen enough to convince him that Xerxes, while he affixed his jewels and garments on the plane tree, was engaged in solemn invocation; soliciting, on the eve of an important military enterprise, the Almighty’s favour through the intercession of some imaginary power.

“That such is a just interpretation of the circumstance will further appear when we consider that it is not merely in case of sickness (though a very frequent occasion), that the present Muselman Persians (no less averse from gross idolatry than their early predecessors) invoke the spirits supposed to dwell in certain trees, by hanging on the branches pieces torn from their garments; but as I have learned from several among them, on every undertaking which they deem of magnitude, such as a commercial or matrimonial speculation, the building of a new house, or a long journey; and as almost six hundred years ago, when Saadi wrote his work above quoted, offerings are daily made by votaries desirous of having children.

“On this subject an anecdote was told by a person at Shiraz, from whom I sought information respecting some trees and bushes covered with old rags, in the vale of Abdui and other places. He assured me that before the arrival of our Embassy at Bushehr, a merchant, lately married to a beautiful girl, but who had not yet given him reason to expect the blessing of an heir, was travelling with her, and finding a pleasant spot, halted there awhile, the sun’s excessive heat inducing him to seek shelter. He perceived at a little distance from the road some ancient walls, among which grew a shady and handsome tree, to this he retired with his young wife, leaving the mules or horses in a servant’s care. The tree, from its situation, had until that time, escaped the notice of most passengers, and did not exhibit on its branches even one votive offering, but the merchant, whose fondest wish was to obtain a son, fastened on it a shred torn from his clothes, and the united vows of himself and his fair companion were crowned with success before the expiration of a year. The circumstance being known (although some would, perhaps, think the event possible without any preternatural agency), was ascribed to the tree’s efficacious influence, and within another year the branches were covered with several hundred rags, by as many votaries; not all, however, acting from the same motive.”[15]

As might reasonably be anticipated, the imagination has readily lent itself to the development and propagation of the superstitious idea now under consideration, and we find many an ancient bush exalted into a Dirakht-i-fazel from the fancied appearance of fire glowing in the midst of it, and then suddenly vanishing; this name, as we have already seen, implying according to Chardin, “the excellent tree,” and bestowed, as several travellers have observed, on every bough or tree that exhibits votive offerings, without regard to size or species, age, beauty or situation.

“Where trees are generally scarce, the votary,” says Ousley, “must not be fastidious in selection; Dirakht-i-fazels are found near tombs containing the bodies of supposed saints, or Im mz dehs, but I have as frequently observed them in desert places where it could not be imagined that they derived any virtue from such sacred relics.

“As the Persian villagers in their rustic dialect give the name of f zel (still perhaps retaining its sense as the epithet excellent) to certain preternatural beings, so Dirakht-i-fazel would express ‘the tree of the genii.’ This circumstance I learn from a note written at my request, after some conversation on the subject, by Mirza Mohammed Saleh, of Shiraz, a very ingenious and well-informed young man of letters. And that preternatural beings were supposed to frequent a certain tree, I learn from an author of the twelfth century, quoted by Hamdallah Cozvini. He relates that among the wonders of Azerbaijan (or Media) there is at the foot of Mount Sabalan, a tree, about which grows much herbage; but neither is this nor the fruit of that tree ever eaten by beasts or birds, as they dislike it, and to eat of it is to die. This, as tradition reports, is the residence of jinn or genii.”[16]

The MS. Diet of Berhan Kattea, contains a long passage concerning two cypress trees of high celebrity among the Magians, the young plants of which had been brought, it is said, from Paradise, by Zeratusht or Zoroaster himself, who in an auspicious hour planted one at Kashm r and the other at F rmad. After they had flourished one thousand four hundred and fifty years, the Arabian Khalifah, Motawakel (who reigned in the ninth century), commanded Taher Ben Abdallah, the governor of Khor s n, to cut them down and send both their trunks and branches to Baghd d, near which city he was constructing a palace. With such veneration were these ancient cypresses regarded by the Magians, that they offered, but in vain, fifty thousand dinars or pieces of gold coin, to save them from the fatal axe. At the moment of their fall, an earthquake spread consternation through the surrounding territory. Such was their immense size, that they afforded shade at once to above two thousand cows or oxen and sheep; with the branches alone, thirteen hundred camels were loaded, and in transporting the huge trunks on rollers to Baghdad, five hundred thousand direms (pieces of silver coin) were expended. On the very night that they reached the stage next to Motawakel’s new edifice, this Kh lifah was assassinated by his servants.

Ousley says-“The assassination of Motawakel happened on the tenth of December, in the year of our era 861; and not without a strong suspicion that his own son concurred in the atrocious deed.”

Ancient writings supply an abundance of anecdotes relating to wonderful trees which have flourished at various periods of the world’s history, but many of these are so thickly encumbered with matter purely legendary that it is often difficult to distinguish the genuine from the apochryphal.

Among others there is in a Greek manuscript preserved in the library of Augsburgh, and quoted by Jacobus Gretser, in his work “De Sancta Cruce,” an account of an extraordinary triple tree, planted by the patriarch Abraham, and existing until the death of Christ-a period of about nineteen hundred years.

Greek writers tell of a wild olive which had taken root and grown from the club of Hercules, and Pausanias describes it as existing in the second century.

The same writer speaks of a number of other celebrated trees remaining in his own time, including the large and beautiful plane called Menelais, which was planted at Caphya by Menelaus, when engaged in military preparations for the siege of Troy, or by his brother Agamemnon, described as the “king of men,” according to Pliny.

An instance of tree veneration somewhat similar to that recorded by Xerxes, already cited, may here be mentioned. According to the historian we are quoting, the consul Parsienus Crispus so loved a certain tree that he was accustomed to kiss and embrace it, to lay himself down under it and to besprinkle it with wine. “The kisses and embraces,” says Ousley, “might have authorized lian to give the Roman consul a place in his chapter on strange and ridiculous loves. But to recline under the shade of a beautiful tree seems perfectly natural; and, perhaps, we may discover in the libation or affusion with wine, something of a religious ceremony, for it appears that the tree stood in an ancient grove consecrated to Diana, and we know that wine was sprinkled on trees in the early ages, as still in some parts of France.”

Near Cairo, at a fountain wherein the Virgin Mary washed her infant’s clothes, a lamp was, three centuries ago, kept burning to her honour in the hollow of an old fig tree, which had served them as a place of shelter, according to the “Itinerario de Antonio Tenreio;” and Maundrell, who travelled in 1697, saw between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, the famous turpentine tree, in the shade of which the blessed Virgin is said to have reposed when she was carrying Christ in her arms.

In the time of Hamdallah Cazvini (fourteenth century), a dry or withered tree distinguished the grave of a holy man at Bastam; this tree had once been (they say) Mohammed’s staff, and was transmitted through many generations, until finally deposited in the grave of Abu Abdallah Dasitani, where it took root and put forth branches, like the club of Hercules. Those who injured this sacred tree perished on the same day.

In the time of Plutarch, an aged tree still bore the title of “Alexander’s Oak,” and marked a spot rendered memorable by one of that hero’s exploits. It stood near the river Cephisus, and not far from the burial-place of many valiant Macedonians. How old this tree may have been during Alexander’s youth, does not appear; but it grew near Cheron a where he signalised himself in battle 337 years before Christ; and Plutarch died 119 years after Christ. It may, however, have existed to a much later period.

In Africa, the modern Muselmans and Pagans seem equally inclined to distinguish particular trees as sacred objects. Every tribe of the Galla nation, in Abysinnia, worship avowedly as a god, the Wanzey tree. Mr. Salt confirms this statement of Bruce, using similar language. Mungo Park mentions the Neema Tuba, a large tree decorated with innumerable rags or scraps of cloth-“a tree which nobody presumed to pass without hanging up something.”

Barbot informs us that the inhabitants of Southern Guinea make offerings and pray to trees, more especially in time of sickness; from an expectation of thereby recovering their health.

Colonel Keatinge, in his “Travels in Europe and Africa,” speaks of a resemblance or identity between the Argali (wild olive) and the Arayel or the sacred tree of the Hindus; and he noticed the offerings strung upon those Argali, “rags, potsherds, and the like trash.” Why such things were offered, or the origin of such a custom, no person attempts to explain, but he observes, “a traveller will see precisely the like in the west of Ireland, and will receive an equally satisfactory account upon the subject.”

A multiplicity of extracts might be quoted to prove how long this superstition lingered among various nations of Europe, besides the Irish. We need scarcely premise that it was widely diffused in pagan times throughout those nations. We have already seen it among the Greeks and Romans. It flourished among the ancient Germans, as Tacitus and Agathias inform us; among the Scandinavians also, and different tribes of the north, according to their Edda and other works. The Druids of the Celts, Gauls and Britons of course afford familiar examples. But after the introduction of Christianity we find the worship of trees condemned, as a practice still existing, by the councils of Auxerre, of Nantes, and of Tours. It was also strongly forbidden by the laws of Canute, as may be seen in Wilkins’s “Leg. Ang. Sax.”

Many anecdotes are recorded, says Ousley, of holy men who exerted themselves in efforts to abolish the superstition. Thus we read in the History of Saint Valeri, that this pious abbot, having discovered the trunk of a large tree which the rustics zealously worshipped with pagan devotion, immediately directed that it should be destroyed. Notwithstanding such laudable exertions, we learn from Ditmar, an author of the eleventh century, that in his time the people of Ridegast, in Mecklenbourgh, revered a certain gloomy forest and were afraid to touch the trees of which it was composed.

Leonard Rubenus, late in the sixteenth century, found Livonia still infected with the idolatrous veneration of trees; for passing through the sacred woods of the Esthonians, he perceived an immense pine, which the neighbouring people adored, loading its branches with pieces of old cloth, and expecting that any injury offered to it would be attended with some miraculous punishment. Rubenus, however, tells us that he cut on this pine the figure of a cross, and, lest the superstition should be thereby augmented, he afterwards marked on it the form of a gibbet, in contempt for the tree, regarded by those rustics as their god.

At a much later period this kind of idolatry existed among the same people. Abel Burja, who visited them in 1777, mentions their sacred trees, and relates an anecdote which he heard at Petersburgh from a priest of Finland, whose father had likewise exercised the sacerdotal office in that country, where his parishioners had long honoured a certain tree with religious homage. This worthy pastor, having excited the good humour of those peasants, whom he treated with brandy, exhorted them to cut down the object of their superstitious worship, but they refused to touch it, fearing that on the first application of an axe they should be destroyed by thunderbolt. Their pastor, however, struck it with impunity; encouraged by the brandy, they followed his example, and soon prostrated the ancient tree.[17]

[14] Theb. Lib., II. 736.

[15] Ousley* ******, vol. I.

[16] Ousley, vol. I.

[17] Ousley, vol. I.