(M228) A tree which has been struck by lightning is naturally regarded by the savage as charged with a double or triple portion of fire; for has he not seen the mighty flash enter into the trunk with his own eyes? Hence perhaps we may explain some of the many superstitious beliefs concerning trees that have been struck by lightning. Thus in the opinion of the Cherokee Indians “mysterious properties attach to the wood of a tree which has been struck by lightning, especially when the tree itself still lives, and such wood enters largely into the secret compounds of the conjurers. An ordinary person of the laity will not touch it, for fear of having cracks come upon his hands and feet, nor is it burned for fuel, for fear that lye made from the ashes will cause consumption. In preparing ballplayers for the contest, the medicine-man sometimes burns splinters of it to coal, which he gives to the players to paint themselves with, in order that they may be able to strike their opponents with all the force of a thunderbolt. Bark or wood from a tree struck by lightning, but still green, is beaten up and put into the water in which seeds are soaked before planting, to insure a good crop, but, on the other hand, any lightning-struck wood thrown into the field will cause the crop to wither, and it is believed to have a bad effect even to go into the field immediately after having been near such a tree.”(740) Apparently the Cherokees imagine that when wood struck by lightning is soaked in water the fierce heat of the slumbering fire in its veins is tempered to a genial warmth, which promotes the growth of the crops; but that when the force of the fire has not been thus diluted it blasts the growing corn. When the Thompson Indians of British Columbia wished to set fire to the houses of their enemies, they shot at them arrows which were either made from a tree that had been struck by lightning or had splinters of such wood attached to them.(741) They seem to have thought that wood struck by lightning was so charged with fire that it would ignite whatever it struck, the mere concussion sufficing to explode it like gunpowder. Yet curiously enough these Indians supposed that if they burned the wood of trees that had been struck by lightning, the weather would immediately turn cold.(742) Perhaps they conceived such trees as reservoirs of heat, and imagined that by using them up they would exhaust the supply and thus lower the temperature of the atmosphere.(743) Wendish peasants of Saxony similarly refuse to burn in their stoves the wood of trees that have been struck by lightning; but the reason they give for their refusal is different. They say that with such fuel the house would be burnt down.(744) No doubt they think that the electric flash, inherent in the wood, would send such a roaring flame up the chimney that nothing could stand before it. In like manner the Thonga of South Africa will not use