tree worship

Tree worship can fall prey to political exploitation, especially when a national or ethnic group claims an immemorial attachment to a patch of land.

This sort of knee-jerk tree worship makes professional arborists shake their heads.

Although the festival is a rejoicing at the promising crops in the field, and although it may be traced to the solar myth and Ushá or dawn worship, it is undoubtedly one of the most extensive festivals of tree worship.

Whatever may be the result of the investigation into the Serpent Worship of Ceylon, there is no doubt whatever about the prevalence and importance of Tree Worship in that island.

Sir William Ousley, from whose travels we quote in other parts of this volume, describes the tree worship at Najran in Arabia, in which the tree was a palm or Sacred Date, having its regular priests, festivals, rites and services, and he quotes from a manuscript of the ninth century after Christ, and adds this note from a writer on Indian and Japanese symbols of divinity.