[Sidenote: The Indian fire-sticks made from the sacred fig and _sami_ wood.] This practice of the modern Agnihotri or fire-priest of India is in general accord with the precepts laid down in the ancient sacred books of his religion. For these direct that the upper or male stick of the fire-drill should be made of the sacred fig-tree (_asvattha_), and the lower or female stick of _sami_ wood (_Prosopis spicigera_); and they draw out the analogy between the process of fire-making and the intercourse of the sexes in minute detail.[809] It deserves to be [Sidenote: The male fire-stick made by preference from a sacred fig-tree growing as a parasite on the female _sami_ tree.] noted that the male fire-stick was cut by preference from a sacred fig-tree which grew as a parasite on a _sami_ or female tree. The reason for this preference is obvious to the primitive mind. A parasite clasping a tree with its tendrils is conceived as a man embracing a woman, hence a pair of fire-sticks made from a pair of trees thus interlaced will naturally possess the power of procreating fire by friction in an unusually high degree.[810] So completely, in the Hindoo mind, does the process of making fire by friction blend with the union of the human sexes that it is actually employed as part of a charm to procure male offspring.[811] Such a confusion of thought helps us to understand the part played by the domestic fire in the ritual of marriage and birth as well as in the legends of the miraculous origin of the Latin kings.[812] In ancient India the male and the female fire-stick were identified with King Pururavas and the nymph Urvasi, whose loves and sorrows formed the theme of a beautiful tale.[813]